# Introduction
Welcome to BlindSlash! This guide covers the basics of using BlindSlash to play retail World of Warcraft. There are several other ReadMe files which will help you with advanced topics, but this is the place to start. Note that you can access this guide in game by typing /BSExplain. You can also find someone to help you get started in the BlindSlash Discord:
If you need help installing World of Warcraft, try a beginner guide such as this one:
In addition to BlindSlash, you will need at least two other addons to play. In general, addons are installed by unzipping them and putting them into the wow retail game directory at interface\AddOns. Note that the game must be installed and launched at least once before this folder will appear in your file system. The most current version of BlindSlash can be found as a zipped file in our Discord, in channel blindslash-download.
Sometimes after a patch you will get an error message upon loading, saying that your addons are out of date. If you get this message you should click Load Anyway, then verify that you do have the correct version if you have any problems in game. If you accidentally click enter on the disable key, you can enter the following commands into your chat bar to re-enable them:
/click AddonListForceLoad
/enableaddons
/reload
To open your chat bar, simply press enter once your character has finished loading. Typing / will also open your chat bar and prepend a / to whatever you type.
#1a TomTom:
This is a required addon which can be found at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/tomtom
TomTom creates waypoints on the game map which BlindSlash uses to help you navigate. TomTom can be updated manually, or kept up to date with an addon manager such as CurseForge.
#1b KeyboardPort:
This required addon is a modified version of ConsolePort, which allows navigation of in-game menus with an interface designed for a controller. We have modified this addon for keyboard use, but in order to allow you to update this via CurseForge, have given it a unique name on that website. In can be downloaded here:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/keyboardport
If for any reason CurseForge mistakes your KeyboardPort folders for ConsolePort ones and updates them with the wrong version, you should delete all ConsolePort folders and reinstall the versions inside the KeyboardPort zip file. You should also unplug any actual controllers before launching World of Warcraft, to avoid input conflicts with leftover ConsolePort code.
KeyboardPort is currently our best option for navigation, but may require some practice to learn how the sighted UI is laid out. See the ConsolePort ReadMe and the rest of this guide for some game commands.
By default, when you open a menu in game, KeyboardPort's virtual cursor will remain within that menu's window, but once you feel comfortable with the layout you may wish to type /UI to allow the cursor to move around the entire game interface. To turn off this unlimited UI, simply type /UI again. It should be noted that, in its current state, World of Warcraft may often block additional actions after UI is turned off, such as spells and other combat actions. Additionally, you may also find yourself stuck in the frame you were previously navigating. A /reload can fix either of these issues; however, if you are experiencing the latter, open your bags by pushing B, navigate your UI to that frame, reenable normal UI, then close the bag.
When navigating UI frames within the game, you can also try using the ConsolePort cage feature, which you can activate by pressing the right ctrl key when you’re in the frame you wish to navigate. This will lock the ConsolePort cursor to the specific UI frame you are in to simplify navigation and stop the cursor from jumping around outside the frame so often. Press the right ctrl key when you’re finished to disable the cage. In the event your machine does not have a right ctrl key, you can enable and disable the cage by typing /cpcage.
#1c Optional Addons:
GTFO - Provides an audible alert when you're standing in something you don't want to be standing in. In some cases, you'll be warned before you start taking damage. This mod improves your situational awareness and is recommended for dungeon delvers and raiders of all skill levels, as even the most seasoned veteran sometimes needs a reminder not to stand in the fire. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/gtfo
Hear Kitty - This addon makes unique sounds to help you keep track of class-specific resources, such as combo points for rogues, soul shards for warlocks, etc. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/hear-kitty
ExtraQuestButton - Provides a bindable button which will let you quickly use a quest item or spell. ExtraQuestButton will pick up most of what the built in extra action button feature misses, though not quite all of them. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/extraquestbutton
Talent Loadout Manager - creates a window to the left of the talent tree which provides extended options for loading talent builds quickly. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/talent-loadout-manager
Quest TTS - Provides a command to replay quest text on demand from your most recently opened quest. See the addon page for help. Note that this addon must be configured using the Addons tab at the top of World of Warcraft's Options menu before it will work properly, and checking certain options may cause text to be read twice when used with BlindSlash. The addon commands are as follows:
/qtts play
/qtts stop
/qtts settings
Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/questtts
Chat Sound Customizer - This addon makes a unique sound for each chat channel that people are speaking on, since Blizzard's TTS will not read the channel name by default. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/chat-sound-customizer
Deadly Boss Mods, aka DBM - Gives audio callouts for special boss abilities in dungeons and raids. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/deadly-boss-mods
Autobar - This addon is mainly used to have a way to eat food without the pain of searching through your bag all day. Use the slash command /AB to open a menu where you can select “eat” with up and down arrow. And then press enter to eat. You can also set a favorite mount and some other similar utility functions. This addon is bindable using /bsbind Key autobar. See the Bindings readme for details. Download at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/auto-bar
After placing the addons into your retail\interface\AddOns folder, launch World of Warcraft again. If you have logged in already and allowed it to save your credentials, you should be taken directly to the character creation screen. If you already have a character created, you may instead see the character selection screen for your most recent server. Since BlindSlash and KeyboardPort do not run in the login screen, you will need to use one of the methods listed at the end of this section to continue. Please review this entire section before creating your first character.
#2a The Social Contract:
At some point before you can log in and begin playing with your first character, the dreaded Social Contract will appear. This is a simple reminder to treat other players with respect, and you should read it at least once to become familiar with its terms before hitting accept. Note that the Accept button will not become interactable until you have scrolled down to the end of the social contract. You can get sighted help or use a mouse to scroll this window, but some alternative methods are mentioned below.
Note that the Social Contract may appear again periodically, particularly after a major game patch.
#2b Server Selection:
By default, you will start on a randomly chosen PVE game server. If you don't care where you start, this is fine. If you would like to join a guild with your friends, you may wish to select a specific one. For American and Oceanic players we currently recommend a New Player PVE server such as Azshara or Thunderlord. High population servers may occasionally have queues to log in, and the general chat channels can be spammy and chaotic. Whichever server you choose, you will still be able to play with anyone on your BattleNet friends list or, in many cases, your region, with The War Within’s new cross-realm functionalities for guilds and other content.
#2c Choosing Your Race and Class:
World of Warcraft has two playable factions - the Horde and the Alliance. Despite opinions to the contrary, neither faction is purely evil or good, and you will find wholesome and morally grey characters in each. See the following pages for an overview of the races belonging to these factions:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/new-players/horde-race-overview
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/new-players/alliance-race-overview
Each race has a handful of unique abilities and buffs, but unless you're min-maxing, you should play what you enjoy most. Note that Pandaren, Dracthyr, and the upcoming Earthen allied race can belong to either faction.
Your character will also have a class, such as rogue or hunter, which determines the bulk of their abilities. You should select your character's race first to avoid having to click it again after selecting your class, as the game will jump to a random available class if you click on a race which can't play the class you have selected. See a guide for classes and who can play them here:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/choosing-your-class-a-beginners-guide-5179
We recommend against Mage for your first class, as its abilities can be difficult to understand without experience, but all are playable blind in retail WoW. Many players enjoy starting as Hunter, which has a pet that will help you fight and shield you from damage. If you are undecided as to which combat role you would like to play, you could choose Monk or Paladin, which can swap between all three. Druid can also choose any role, but you may not want to choose Druid or Rogue until you have mastered keybindings, since their stance bars can be harder to configure.
Some races and classes must be unlocked before you can play them. For example, you may only create one Evoker per server, and you will need to have a high level character on that server for all but your first Evoker. Not every race/class combination is currently available, and Death Knight and Demon Hunter cannot be chosen for your first character because they begin play at a higher level.
On this first screen you can also select your body type. Body type one is masculine, and body type two is feminine. There is very little audio feedback for this menu, but if you are unsure your selection method is working, you can reference this brief audio guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXPlVjHhjk
Once you have selected race, class, and body type either with sighted help or using one of the methods outlined below, press enter to move on to the character customization screen. If you have pressed enter by mistake before you are done, simply press escape once to return.
Unfortunately the customizations are not accessible at this time, and you will need sighted help to choose a certain look. Don't be afraid to keep your starting settings, as these can all be changed later.
The final decision you need to make is your character's name, which must contain only letters. The name field should be focused by default, so type it and press enter to see whether the name you want is available. If it is, you will begin play. If not, you will have to choose a different name. There is a randomize button which will generate an available name for you, but this button will not appear while creating your very first character.
#2d Golden Cursor:
There are several ways to create a character without sighted help, however only one of these has been configured to work with recent changes to the game interface. Currently the most complete method is to use the NVDA plugin Golden Cursor. You can find the download and instructions here:
https://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/goldenCursor.en.html
Once this is installed, find the login-screen-and-mousegrid-values channel in the BlindSlash Discord and select the .GC file which matches your monitor's resolution. Download this file and place it in the folder where Golden Cursor has been installed, which should be something like the following:
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\nvda\addons\goldenCursor\mousePositions
The AppData folder may be hidden in your file system by default, but you should be able to type it into the file path. If you do not already have a mousePositions folder, you may need to create one - lowercase M, uppercase P, no spaces.
Now you must rename the .GC file to wow.gc, removing the resolution numbers. Once this file is in place, you should be able to press Control+NVDA+L to view the saved mouse positions. All but the last few positions are for the first character creation screen. The secondary starting area choice is for a third screen which you will not see until you have completed Exiles Reach and a brief quest chain in your faction's capital city with at least one character.
Once you have chosen a name and pressed enter, you should hear a voice introducing your first mission. After you complete the starting experience once, you will instead find a screen granting you a choice to start here again or go through your chosen race's alternate starting area, but your first character will begin in Exile's Reach.
After the narration ends, the very first thing you should do is walk forward. A game bug causes characters to get stuck if they disconnect before moving, so once you hear a voice instructing you to step forward, tap W once or twice to do so, then A and D briefly to turn left and right.
At this point, you can continue this tutorial in game by typing /BSExplain, no spaces. If everything has loaded properly, you should be able to arrow up and down through the pages in this guide. If this does not work, follow the instructions in the AddOns section above to turn them on again. You may also need to type /TTS to turn on Blizzard's native text-to speech.
If you still cannot hear anything, check to make sure your addons are enabled using the following commands:
/run if not AddonList.ForceLoad:GetChecked() then AddonList.ForceLoad:Click()ReloadUI() end
/enableaddons
/reload
If at any time BlindSlash or KeyboardPort stop working, run these commands again. This is especially a good thing to check if a major game patch has been applied since you last played, as World of Warcraft will try to disable addons which don’t match your current game version.
The first time you run the above commands, you may also need to enable addon scripts to run. This can be done with the following line of code or google to add a line to the config chache file:
/run SetCVar("AllowDangerousScripts",1)
#3a Configuring BlindSlash TTS:
Now you should be able to hear the BlindSlash TTS after typing /BSExplain. You probably don't like how it sounds, right? Let's take a moment to configure it.
Below is a slash command which will set your BlindSlash TTS to the default voice, with a speed of 7 and volume of 100%. Press enter on that line to apply the setting, then you may need to alt tab in and out of the game because of a WoW TTS bug. If your TTS ever stops speaking to you, try the alt tab trick first.
/bstts 0 nofullstop 7 100
For something a bit slower, try:
/bstts 0 nofullstop 5 100
You can change the speed to any number between 1 and 10.
To use a voice with Nuno's NVDASAPI extension, simply change the first zero to a different number until you find the voice you prefer. You may have to go through several voice IDs to find the one you need, and some channels appear to be blank, so be patient.
If using the Hekili addon, it has its own channel called BSTTS2, which can be configured to speak with a different voice than BSTTS.
#3b Important Slash Commands
Next you should press enter on the following line to create four macros you are gonna need:
/generatemacros
/bsbind L waylist
This binds your most important navigation menu, the waylist, to the L key. While the waylist is open, normal navigation will not work, but additional tools will be available. See the waylist section below for more details, and the waylist readme for a quick reference guide.
/bsbind BACKSPACE filteredcommand
this binds the backspace key to the macro you are able to fill by opening the waylist and pressing f to search for all sorts of things in the game like spells questitems mounts etc.
Now press enter on the line below to enable soft interact. This command will not make a sound.
/autointeracton
Soft interact is a new feature in World of Warcraft which allows interacting without a mouse. You must turn this on for each character you create, to ensure that you can collect your loot. Please note, if you are using this addon and still have usable vision that will help you in your gameplay, you can use /run silenceinteract=true, in order to avoid being spammed by TTS announcing when something is interactable through soft interact.
The next several lines are important for interacting accessibly, and will be explained in the questing section. Page through and press enter on each of them for now. This should only need to be done once unless your game configuration has been reset.
/bsbind G interacttarget
/bsbind SHIFT-G interactspin
/bsbind H spinobj
/bsbind SHIFT-H spintarget
/bsbind Z ttspin
/bsbind U softinteracttoggle
/bsbind F followtarget
/bsbind SHIFT-F followmacro
/bsbind SHIFT-E extraactionbutton
/bsbind SHIFT-Q questpointer
/bsbind T pingtarget
If you wish to change which keys these commands are bound to, visit the BSBind section to learn how. However, using these defaults will make this tutorial easier to understand.
Now for some combat and miscellaneous settings.
/healthpulse
The above enables a heartbeat sound which indicates you have taken critical damage.
/targetannouncer
This one gives you target names upon tab targeting. If you target an enemy you're not currently in combat with while fighting something else, this feature will warn you to not attack yet. This is especially important for ranged classes. When out of combat, it simply calls out target names.
/healthannouncer on
/rangeannouncer on
These help determine how wounded and how far away your target is, respectively.
/followannouncer
This plays a sproing sound when you start following and a rockfall sound when you stop following.
/anticollision on
This will play a knocking sound if you run into a wall and cannot move forward. It also enables falling sounds. Note that in Exile's Reach, the game often makes the wall sound when walking uphill or following another character. This will usually go away if you stop moving and then begin again.
If you hear a falling sound in combat, you have probably been knocked backwards by your enemy. Rare abilities will toss you straight up, sometimes far enough to take damage when you land. Use damage mitigation or a slow fall ability should you hear the sound a second time. A rogue's shadowstep can also negate falling damage.
Note that if your game crashes for any reason before you save these settings, you may have to run through this list again. To save them before moving on, simply push escape to close this guide and then type /reload. Optionally you could log out with /camp or /logout. Remember that if you close World of Warcraft and your TTS does not read to you upon launch, you will need to alt tab out and back in again.
Now that your keybinds have been set and some vital sound cues turned on, you should be ready to begin your first quest. For a preview of what you're getting into, you can check out the following walkthrough. This link contains spoilers of course, so skip it if you want to be surprised:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/exiles-reach-walkthroughs-analysis
This guide will assume you know nothing about the quests ahead, so reading the walkthrough on Wowhead is not required. We do recommend reading through each section completely once before following its instructions.
#4a Basic NPC Interaction
Your first step is to find either Warlord Breka Grimaxe if you are Horde, or Captain Garrick if you are Alliance. This should be as simple as pressing your interact key, which we set to G in the last chapter. If for some reason G does not walk you over to her, the next thing to try is /target. For example:
/target Warlord
/target Captain
This can also be shortened to /tar, as in /tar war or /tar cap. /target Breka or /target Garrick will not work; it must be the first characters of the NPC's display name. For those new to gaming jargon, NPC is short for non-player character.
You will know you have acquired your target when you hear her name spoken. Now, make sure this guide is closed and press G again. If this still does not work, press U to make sure your soft interact is on.
#4b Dealing With Obstacles
Mostly likely, your interact key will have walked you to the target and opened a quest window. In some cases, especially if the target is moving, the interact key will only walk you partway. If this happens, first try interacting again to see if the first click merely moved you close enough to reach your target. Otherwise, there may be an obstacle in your way.
If interact still will not work after a third try, check for obstacles by moving forward with the W key or the up arrow. If you hear a collision noise, press spacebar as you move, to jump over any ground clutter. If this does not work, next try pressing Q or E to slide left or right without changing your facing direction. This is called strafing. If strafing with Q or E does not let you move forward, try moving backward instead with either the S key or the back arrow, and then strafe left or right before moving forward again. If you cannot strafe either, try turning with brief taps of the A and D keys or the left and right arrows, then walk forward while jumping until you get free.
If you still seem to be stuck, there are some other things to try. First, attempt to get closer using the quest pathing or rescue point options. These will be explained in a later section. If you are well and truly stuck, you may need to use your hearthstone to return to a safe location and begin your path again. You will not be given a hearthstone until you finish the starting experience, so try to follow instructions carefully here in Exile's Reach.
#4c Accepting Quests With KeyboardPort
Once you have successfully interacted with your first questgiver, you should hear the quest title and objectives, followed by a description of some of the rewards. Currently BlindSlash cannot read most rewards, but you can use the arrow keys inside this menu to see if there is an item reward.
Your first quest will not have any special rewards. Using the arrow keys inside this menu, you should be able to find the close button, the accept button, and a quest decline button. If you have installed the optional Quest TTS addon, its play button will appear as a silent triangle to the left of the close button.
Note that going up and then down from the accept button will not return you to the same place. This is because KeyboardPort uses the sighted player's UI, which is not laid out in the same number of columns and rows across the entire menu. Practice moving around with your arrow keys, and then press comma on the accept key. This emulates a click with the right mouse button. To emulate a left click inside a menu, you can press period.
You may be accustomed to pressing enter instead of comma or period inside these menus, but beware. Pressing enter in World of Warcraft usually opens the chat bar instead, and all further keypresses will be logged as text in that bar. If you believe you have opened your chat bar by mistake, simply press escape once to close it.
One thing which may cause KeyboardPort to misbehave is if you have a controller plugged into your device. It is best to disconnect all controllers while playing World of Warcraft with the KeyboardPort addon.
#4d Targeting an Enemy
The easiest way to target a nearby enemy is with the tab key. This will focus the nearest enemy in front of you. You can switch between nearby targets by pressing tab again until you hear the one you want. You can also use /target if you know the name of the NPC you are looking for, but this will grab targets behind you as well as in front.
For your first quest, you will need to destroy a single combat dummy. Press tab to find out if you are facing in the right direction. As with friendly targets, you should hear its name. If you do not, tap one of the side arrows or the A or D keys to turn left or right respectively, and press tab after each turn to see whether you have turned far enough.
If for some reason you cannot target a combat dummy with tab even after turning several times, target Warlord Breka or Captain Garrick again and press G to interact with her. This should bring you back to the quest area.
#4e Initiating Combat
Once you have your target selected, there are two ways to attack it. The first is to simply interact with G, which will turn on your autoattack. If you are standing close enough, or have a ranged weapon equipped, this will initiate combat. If you are too far away, you will adopt a combat stance and begin attacking only when you or the enemy have moved in close, or when you use a ranged ability.
Interact is not the most efficient way to fight. At the bottom of your screen is an action bar with twelve slots, each bound to a key on your number row, from 1 to =. A few keys, such as 9 or 0, may be set to unique racial abilities your character possesses, but your level 1 attack spell will be bound to the 1 key. Use this ability every few seconds to do much greater damage.
When you press interact or the 1 key with an enemy targeted, you should hear the entering combat sound, like a sword striking a shield. If you do not hear this, walk forward with W or up arrow until you do. You may hear a range indicator, such as R 10, or R 0. If this number is getting smaller, you are moving toward your target. If it is getting larger, press the T key to ping the target and then use your turn keys to face toward the sound before walking forward again.
Note that to get the most benefit out of pingtarget, you will need headphones or some other sound system with a left and right channel. Do not be afraid you will fall off the boat when searching for a target, as this area is fully enclosed.
If this is not your first character, you may be tempted to use more advanced abilities, such as interactspin. Be aware that these may not work reliably on the boat, and can cause game-breaking errors here. Be patient and use the methods outlined here and in section 4b.
Once you are in combat, keep pressing your 1 key periodically to use your level 1 class ability. You should hear a voice telling you a percentage number, which is your target's health. When it reaches zero percent, you should hear three different sounds.
The first sound to listen for is two xylophone notes with a rising pitch. This means that you have collected a quest objective. The second sound is an orc's voice telling you "well done." This means you have collected all of the objectives you need in order to turn in one of your quests.
The third sound is a trumpet fanfare, which indicates that you are no longer in combat. The last will be important to listen for, as being in combat will prevent you from using certain abilities, even if your enemy cannot reach you.
#4f Turning in Quests with KeyboardPort
Now that you have finished the quest objective, you will need to turn in your quest. While on the boat you should /target Captain Garrick or Warlord Breka and interact with G, or you can turn with A or D or your left and right arrow keys until you hear your TTS say Cursor Campaign Quest Turn In 64. This is a description of the interact cursor which now appears when you face her. Throughout the game you may hear shorter versions, such as quest turn in, but the campaign quest cursor means that you will need to complete this quest in order to progress the main story.
The turn in quest menu is similar to the quest accept frame. There is no cancel button; you can either click complete quest at the bottom of the frame, or you can close the quest frame with escape or the close button at the bottom. Once you click complete with the comma key, any rewards will be added to your character's experience bar, wallet, and bags. This first quest will grant you 200 experience and 55 copper pieces.
There is a World of Warcraft bug you may encounter very rarely when turning in quests, where the quest does not complete even though the button is active. If you believe this is happening, walk away from the questgiver and stop targeting them, which you can do with the escape key or typing /cleartarget with no spaces. After this you should be able to turn in the quest.
Once you have turned in your first quest, your commander will complain about the rain and pawn you off on her subordinate. Since some game features will not work here, you will need to manually target him.
/tar Grunt Throg
/tar Private Cole
Accept his quest and he will walk across the boat and wait for you.
#5a Quest: Stand Your Ground
Now target him again. You may notice that typing G to interact no longer walks you toward him; this is a feature to prevent automated scripts from completing the boat scenario. Since he is now behind you as well, you will need to turn to face him. Remember to use your T key and listen to the ping sound to determine whether you are facing him. The ping will call him your sparring partner rather than say his display name. This is often the case when interacting with NPCs which follow you around or move when triggered by a quest.
If you are a ranged class, then simply facing your sparring partner and pressing interact or 1 should initiate combat. If it does not, or if you have no ranged abilities, you will need to walk toward him, using the ping system to make sure your direction is correct.
Halfway through this fight, your sparring partner will tell you to face your enemy. This means that he is now behind you, and you will need to turn around. You can either walk backwards or turn until you hear your combat sounds begin again. Turning is usually safest, as moving can drop you off ledges or bring you within range of additional enemies.
Eventually your sparring partner will concede the fight and move back across the deck. Turn until you hear Cursor Campaign Quest Turn In 64 and interact, then complete the quest. Remember that your comma key is your left click; if you pressed enter by mistake, simply press escape once to close the chat bar, and then click again.
#5b Quest: Brace for Impact
Once you turn in your second quest, your sparring partner will have a new one for you. Upon accept, you will hear the order to brace yourself. There is no objective for this quest, so target Warlord Breka or Captain Garrick and interact to turn this in.
A brief cut scene will begin, in which your boat is overturned by a monstrous wave. When it ends, you will find yourself on the beach, surrounded by curious murlocs.
Congratulations! You have made it off the boat, and will now be able to access more of the game's systems, as well as a few addons which did not work before.
The first thing you need to do is reload. This will load any addons which were restricted before, such as TomTom.
/reload
From here, we will use the BlindSlash waylist to navigate the island. However, before doing that, you will want to enter the following commands:
/generatemacros
/bsbind T pingtarget
/bsbind SHIFT-Q questpointer
/bsbind F followmacro
These are new macros that became necessary following the launch of The War Within expansion release. It is recommended that you wait until you’re off the boat before inputting these commands, in case generating them causes errors. Please note that using the /generatemacros command will also fix these macros if they break for any reason.
After you’ve done this, type /reload once more.
#6a Collecting the Closest Waypoint
Before you move at all, you must collect the closest waypoint so the BlindSlash addon knows where you are. To do this, first type L to open your waylist, then press C for Closest. You should always collect the closest waypoint after a cut scene, in case the game has moved you. You must also collect after reloading, taking a flight path, or doing many kinds of vehicle quests. If you get too far from your last collected waypoint, the game should remind you to do this.
If everything is working, you should hear a voice tell you which waypoint your beacon is pointed at, then the word "on" indicating that pathing has started and the waylist closed. If you are facing the right direction, you will also hear a repeated clang from in front of you. If you hear a repeated click instead, you are slightly off course and should turn in the direction the clicks are coming from. If you hear nothing, you are probably facing the other way.
Turn until you hear the clang, then walk forward until the clangs stop and a congratulatory melody plays. If the clang stops but you do not hear the melody, you may have walked past it. Turn again until you hear the beacon sounds, and approach a little slower.
#6b InteractSpin
Close beside this first waypoint, you should find Warlord Breka or Captain Garrick. Rather than typing /target, this time we are going to use our interactspin command, which you should have bound to shift-G in section 3b. This will try to face you toward the nearest interactable NPC. It can also help you page between questgivers and other interactable characters here on Exile's Reach where targeting with control-tab is unreliable. Note that interactspin is inferior to control-tab, and should not be relied upon unless other options are unavailable.
Press shift-G or whichever key you have bound your interactspin to. When you hear Cursor Campaign Quest 64, press G to interact and pick up your new quest.
#6c Waylist Navigation
Now it's time to start learning how to use the waylist. Press your L key, or type /wl if you have not bound the waylist to a key. The first thing you should hear is the name of the zone you are questing in. This can be helpful if you find any mapping errors to report. Pressing up and down from here will page through the available waypoints in this zone, starting from your current location. Once you have taken a glance, press escape to close the waylist.
After you have made sure to collect the closest waypoint by pressing L, then C, then following the beacon, open the waylist again with L and choose a point near your current location. You can do this by pressing the down arrow twice; there is no need to explore further than Murloc Hideaway 3 or 4. Now press enter. As when you collected the closest point, you will hear repeated clangs if you are facing the right direction, and clicks if you are close. Practice using your A and D keys to turn from side to side until you can pinpoint the direction you need. Note that if you have moved off your last collected point, BlindSlash will return you to it before it moves on.
Once you are facing the right direction, walk forward. If the clang changes to a click before you reach the first waypoint, adjust your course slightly and continue. Upon reaching the waypoint, you will hear a musical ka-cling sound. Sometimes you may also hear a knocking sound as you walk a path; this may happen when walking up a steep slope or in a place with a lot of ground clutter. If you think you have gotten stuck on something, press spacebar as you walk to try to jump over it, or strafe left and right with Q or E to go around. Sometimes you may need to back out of a corner as well.
Now, turn to the second waypoint. When you reach it, you will hear the same congratulatory melody as when you collected the closest waypoint earlier. This means you have reached the end of your current path.
#6d Using TTSpin to Speed Up Navigation
Now we will return the way we came. Open the waylist, and this time press up until you are back on Murlock Hideaway 1. Press enter on the point to begin pathing, but this time we will use a shortcut to help us turn to the beacon.
In section 3b, you should have bound a command called ttspin to your Z key. If this is not the case, go back to that section and bind it. When you press Z you should hear a trill sound to indicate that you are facing your beacon, and the beacon sound itself should also begin. Walk to the beacon and then press Z again to turn toward your final destination.
If ttspin does not face you toward your beacon within a couple seconds, the first thing to check is whether you are sitting down. Pressing the X key, interacting with a chair object, or idling for five minutes will cause your character to sit. Simply press spacebar or tap W to stand again.
Another possibility if ttspin doesn't work is that you've chosen a point which is not connected to your current path, such as Jrokgar's Coast. In some cases this will cause a map glitch and you will need to reload. It never hurts to /reload if KeyboardPort or the waylist start behaving strangely. Closing World of Warcraft can also help clear many addon conflicts and general game bugs.
If this does not fix your ttspin, you may need a sighted user to help you adjust your graphics settings. Ttspin relies upon a high framerate to work properly, and may fail if it falls too low. Two things to try in your settings are turning off vertical sync, which caps your framerate to your monitor's refresh rate, and turning your graphics settings down to minimum. You should also verify that the option boxes to clamp your framerate to a certain number are unchecked.
Older computers may not be able to use ttspin reliably. If you continue to have trouble with it, simply use your turn keys instead.
One final thing to note is that there are rare game objects such as the snow blanket toy which will cause your character to sit after interacting, and which will not let you leave by moving. If you think you have interacted with one of these, try the following command:
/leavevehicle
#6e Using Your Quest Log
Now that you've had some navigation practice, let's get back to that quest you picked up. Once you accept a quest, it goes into your quest book, also called the quest log. You can access this by opening the waylist with L and then pressing B. Your quest book is organized into chapters based on which zone or category the quest belongs to. For now, the only chapter you should have is Exile's Reach. Inside that chapter is your single quest, Murloc Mania.
Page to your quest with the up and down arrow keys, then press alt-B. This will read the quest text again for you. You can press control-B to hear the quest objectives, including which ones you have completed and which ones are still in progress. Use this if you are not sure whether a quest is ready to be turned in. A quick way to check quest objectives is also by using the /task command. Be advised that this will only provide you with information about the objectives for the quest that you have already previously selected a path for from your quest log, which you will learn about below. If you are attempting to complete multiple quests at once, you will still want to navigate to the quest log in order to check progress individually.
Now that you've reminded yourself what you're after, make sure you're on the right quest and press enter. You should hear the pathing begin. If it does not, or if it points you to a different location than you expected, you may need to reload. Some waypoint maps also have branch errors left over after we made certain changes to the pathing algorithm; please report these in the BlindSlash Discord so we can fix the maps.
From here, the path works the same as it did before. Follow the waypoints to the end of the path, and you will find yourself in the center of the quest area. In most cases, this should be close enough for you to find what you need. In other cases, the quest area may be an odd shape, have many different pieces, or there may be walls or obstacles in your way. For this you will want to use the recorded quest objectives.
#6f Pathing to Recorded Objectives
Make sure you have the closest waypoint collected. Now, open your quest book in the waylist with B. By default, the quest book will open on the last quest you inspected. Confirm that you have the right quest selected if necessary, then press the right arrow key. If the quest has no recorded objectives, you will hear nothing. Otherwise, you should hear a list of numbered objectives. Choose the first one and path to it by pressing enter and following the beacons. Don't forget to close the waylist if necessary.
It is best to follow the quest objectives in the order they are listed in the quest book. Many of these objectives have been recorded by a sighted volunteer, and will be in a logical order, possibly taking you close to objectives for other quests as well. At other times, quests will have more than one stage, and you will need to complete the first stage before the second stage unlocks. Try to keep track of how many you have done, since there is no way currently for us to label these recorded objectives. Some quests may be missing objectives as well, if two of them were collected near the same location.
Once you have completed an objective, you may notice it has been marked complete in the quest book. This is an imperfect system, since it can only tell whether you were standing directly on the point where a previous objective was recorded. If you have tried each recorded point and the quest is still not complete, one thing to try is to go back through each of the recorded points again starting from one, in case there was more than one thing to pick up there. If you are still stuck, read the quest text and objectives again with alt-B and control-B or look up the quest on WowHead to see if there are any special instructions noted in the comments. You can also check the tricky-quest-solutions channel in the BlindSlash Discord.
If you would like to learn about more waylist commands, such as filtering waypoints and getting back on the path if you fall, make sure to read Advanced Waylist Topics later in this guide. Also note that note that since this is a very large game, not all objectives have been recorded by our volunteers. See the end of this guide for instructions on recording missing objectives.
By now you should be standing in the middle of a murloc camp littered with ship debris and salvaged trinkets. Press tab to find a nearby target. You should hear either Murloc Spearhunter or Murloc Watershaper.
#7a Spintarget and Quest Point Discovery
Now that we are off the boat, we have another tool to use to help us face the enemy. In section 3b you should have bound the quest point discovery command, or qpdis, to shift-Q. You should also have bound spintarget to shift-H. If the tab key does not find any targetable enemies, try pressing shift-Q to search for quest-related things behind you, then press shift-H to turn toward your target. Be aware that spintarget is not very precise, and will only work when you have an attackable target selected. It should also not be used on the starting boat, as it can cause a critical game error there. For friendly targets, use shift-G to interactspin while inside Exile's Reach, or control-tab once you have completed the starting experience and unlocked Chromie Time.
If you do not see any murlocs at all, it may be because other players have already killed everything nearby. You may also notice another player killing your target before you can get close. You can either wait for it to respawn, or since there are plenty of murloc scavengers to choose from, you can try moving to another objective point with B and then the arrow keys in the waylist. You can also explore this zone by pathing to nearby points in the waylist, but don't stray too far or you'll be outside the quest area.
As with the target dummies and your sparring partner on the boat, press G or your 1 key to turn on autoattack. Unlike the boat, interact should move you close enough to attack, either within melee range or to 30 yards away if you're a ranged class. If it does not, there may be obstacles in your way. Feel free to try another objective if you can't reach it, and make sure you collect the closest waypoint first if you have moved off your original path.
#7b How to Loot a Body
Once your first target is dead, you should hear the trumpet sound telling you that combat has ended. In most cases, the corpse will be in front of you. You may hear the words "loot all", indicating that you can interact to loot them. Do so, and you should hear two brief musical notes, which means you have collected a quest objective. If for some reason interact does not loot the body, there are a couple things to try.
The first is to make sure your autoloot is on. Since this is one of the few settings which is not account wide, you will want to type the following every time you create a new character:
/autointeracton
If this is already on, it is possible that the target is no longer in front of you, either because you moved, it tried to run away, or it died without reaching you. In this case you can usually find the corpse by typing:
/targetlasttarget
If there are no living creatures with the same name nearby, you can also use /target on a corpse. Once you have your target, interact again to loot. Note that occasionally interact will only move you close to your target on the first keypress, and you may have to press G again once you've arrived.
Once you reach level 8 on your first character, another option unlocks for looting tricky corpses. Before this level you must loot each corpse individually, but later in Exile's Reach you will be able to loot all nearby corpses with a single click. After this, you can lure another nearby enemy to you, kill it, and loot the body in front of you to collect the further creature's loot. Once loot all unlocks on one character, all your characters of any level can use it.
Note: Some important game items will be mailed to you if you fail to loot the body. This generally applies to content you can only do once a week, such as raid bosses which drop powerful items or quest currencies. Junk items and gold will not be mailed. Trial accounts will not be able to receive mail, trade with other players, or access the public chat channels outside of Exile's Reach.
#7c Using Your Quest Book, aka Where Are Quest Items Stored?
For Classic World of Warcraft players, you may expect to find the looted first aid kits inside your bags. This is no longer the case. Most quest items are now logged inside your quest book, and will not take up bag space. The exception may be for items you are supposed to wear or use, or for quests where you donate items like crafting reagents, which have a purpose beyond being turned in for that quest.
To find how many quest items you have collected and what you still need, open your quest book by typing B in the waylist, page to the quest you need, and press control-B on it. This should tell you what you need to complete the current stage of the quest.
In this case, you need to kill murlocs until you have recovered 6 first aid kits. For this quest, each murloc should drop a single kit. Check your quest book to verify that you have all six, or simply listen for the "well done" at the end.
#7d How to Find a Quest Turn-In Location
At this point, you could path back to where you left the questgiver, or possibly even target her, but the best method is to open the quest book in your waylist and find the completed quest there. Remember that when you started, pressing enter on the quest took you to the center of the quest area? That was because you hadn't finished it yet. Now that all of your objectives are complete, pressing enter on the quest will begin a path to the place you should go to turn it in.
On multi-stage quests, it should instead take you to the location for the next phase. Press control-B in the waylist to find out what your current objective is, and keep in mind that there is no way to see which recorded objectives are part of your current phase, so if you're stuck, we recommend reading through the comments section for that quest on WowHead. Note also that some locations are marked incorrectly inside the World of Warcraft database; WowHead should also have the correct NPC coordinates for most of these.
#7e Using Quest Items
When you turn in Murloc Mania, your commander will have a new quest for you - to use the first aid kits you just retrieved. This should be as simple as targeting your nearby crewmates and walking up to them, but there's one small hitch. Even if you target these NPCs by name, your interact key will gravitate to the nearest interactable unit, which in this case is your commander.
You will need to move further away from Captain Garrick or Warlord Breka before you can interact with your actual target. The recorded quest points are especially useful here, so open your quest book with B in the waylist, select your quest with up and down arrows, then press the left and right arrows to find those. Press enter on the first one and path to it.
Now you should be much closer to your target, but you may not be able to see them yet. Turn with the arrow key or use interact spin, which you should have bound to shift-G in section 3b, to attempt to face the nearest quest target. If you do not hear some small popping sounds within a second or two, you may still be too far away. Use your pingtarget key, T, and press your arrow keys to turn manually until the target is in front of you. Now walk forward until you hear the popping sound.
In this case, the item given you for this quest will work automatically upon interact. Sometimes the item may need to be used in a specific location, in which case you will use it with your extra action button. This should be bound to shift-E.
Opening the waylist and pressing f then typing quest will show you questitems you have. after hearing one you like to use escape out and they are bound to backspace.
If neither of these methods work, you may need to find the name of the item either from the quest text or on WowHead and use it with a slash command.
Let's practice using an item with slash commands. Walk close to one of your targets and type the following:
/use First Aid Kit
If the game says you are too far away, you might have a different character targeted. Press escape or /cleartarget to deselect them and try again.
Use this slash command or your interact key to heal the rest of your wounded crewmates. If you have trouble finding all three of them, remember that you can press control-B in the quest book to hear your their names again. Once they're all on their feet, head back to your commander.
#7f Multi-Stage Quests and Pathing to Discoveries
Your next quest will take you further up the beach. Accept it and use the quest book to move north to find the campfire. It is difficult to interact with the NPC you are looking for without standing in the fire, so if you hear a loud crackle or your health pulse starts thumping, you may want to step forward to make sure it's not your feet burning.
Use shift-G to turn toward the person who has a quest for you now, then be sure to path to the center of the quest area before you begin your hunt, to avoid getting stuck on the wrecked ships in your way. This area is also quite hilly, so use the objectives if needed and beware of chasing the birds unless you have a ranged attack. It is better to use your ability keys on the goats, who move around, since interact will only take you to where they were standing when you pressed it.
Once you have five pieces of meat, you will hear a tinkling cymbal. This means that you have completed the first objective for this quest, and must check the quest book to learn your next objective. Before we head back though, there's one other thing you should do.
On your way up, you may have heard "seen abandoned treasure chest." This means that an icon has appeared on your minimap marking the location of a special resource. Your hunt will take you fairly close to it, so press D for Discovery in your waylist to path to this if desired. The waylist will only store the most recent discovery it has made. If you hear nothing when pressing D in the waylist, it means your discovery list is empty.
When you arrive at the waypoint nearest the treasure, you may not be facing it. Turn until you hear the interact sound or the object's name, or press H to use the spin object command you should have bound in part 3b. If you do not hear anything after a couple seconds, you may need to be closer to the chest. You cannot use /target on an object.
Be aware that sometimes the interact key will only take you next to an object, and not interact with it. If you hear nothing, try pressing interact again a couple times. Another thing to check is that your soft interact is still on. Press the U key until you hear it turn on, then try again.
Now find the next objective with your quest book. If you have five pieces of meat already, it will say to cook the meat on the campfire. Choose objective 6 in the quest book or simply path to the quest area. Use the same method you used to open the chest, then turn in the quest.
Hunters will want to complete the next quest and find your expedition's tracker before they move on to the next section of this guide; all other classes must complete the following steps first.
#7g Navigating Your Spellbook
By now you should have gained several levels, and acquired one or more new abilities. It is time to move those to your hotbar.
The fastest way to add spells is to open the waylist and press f key. wait a second. then type spell and up down arrow. press enter on these to pick the spell up you like. it also makes the spell or questitem useable with the backspace key.
Another way that works for any interface window is first open the window. in this case press p. then open the waylist and then press j. now you can up and down arrow and search aswell. press enter to select the button or in this case the spell you want. pressing the spacebar will open a menu to ba able to pick it up.
a slow but game based way would be to open your spellbook with P. When you do this, you will be in a search bar, which you can type enter to clear. Later, when you obtain more spells, you can use this search bar to filter abilities with their keywords to find what you’re looking for. Once you’re out of the search bar, page around a bit to get used to the menu layout. At the bottom are the spellbook and professions tabs. You will not have any professions yet, so hang out on the spellbook tab for now.
The spellbook is arranged in three columns, with up to eight spells per column. At the top left of this page are two tabs you can use to switch between class abilities and general abilities. At the top right are your search bar and hide passives toggle. At the bottom left are tabs which open your talent tree and specialization selection screen. At the bottom right are two buttons you can use to turn the page in your spellbook and view more of your abilities. Moving the scroll wheel on a mouse will also turn the page.
The general tab of your spellbook contains racial abilities and your riding skills. Your class tab contains abilities which will unlock as you level. You do not need to visit a trainer to learn these in retail World of Warcraft. Passive abilities are also interspersed within this category; however, by default BlindSlash has the ‘hide passives’ box checked. If you want to arrow through your abilities in a format that includes your passive abilities, locate the ‘show passives’ button and uncheck it.
Your class tab will also include abilities unlocked by your specialty, which you will be able to choose at level ten. Current specialties are listed first, and your inactive specialties will move to the end of this book. You will see spells in here which you cannot yet use, and which will say "not available yet" when you page through them. Unlocked spells begin at the top of the leftmost column and move downward, then the second column fills, and then the third. Some specialty abilities may also appear on the same page as your main class abilities, below a silent divider.
Have a glance at your spells by arrowing down through them. To learn more information about each one, press the left control button which will read the tooltip.
Note that outside of Exile's Reach, new spells may automatically place themselves in open slots on your bars. You will hear a Velcro sound if this happens.
#7h Adding Spells to Your Hotbars - Method 1: Place on Action Bar
In order to complete the next quest, you will be asked to use abilities which have not yet been moved to your action bar. To fix this, open your spellbook with P, then select the ability you want to bind and press space bar to pick it up. You will be given three options, and BlindSlash will instruct you to arrow down to ‘pick up’ then press the comma key. The more accessible way of picking up a spell is to go into the waylist and press f. Now type "spell".when up and down arrowing now you should hear spells you have. Enter on one to pick it up. Once you have done this, type /ui. Select for example actionbar 1. You can then navigate to the button you want the ability to be bound to, then press comma again. Once you have done this, follow the instructions for returning to normal UI, as discussed in the KeyboardPort section above, and you will be ready to use your new skills! While this is normally a relatively simple process for most classes, rogues and druids will have a bit more difficulty on account of their action bars changing depending on the stance they are using. Rogues, for example will have an entirely different action bar once they enter stealth mode. Stances for these two classes may not always include sounds to indicate when a stance has been switched, thus, your action bars may change without your knowledge. If you want to experiment with something more complex, these are the classes for you! Please make sure that you follow the above instructions carefully, or you may find your cursor stuck on the spell name and unable to move. If this occurs, you can use the UI instructions, as discussed, to start over, or /reload to clear your screen. If at any point during this process, you find that you have accidentally altered your desired keybindings, please consult the bindings readme.
Once you have pressed enter, feel free to explore the frame and discover which keys your abilities have been bound to. Sometimes this will not read on the first ability you place, but you should be able to read the tooltip with the left control button. You can remove an ability with period, but only if it is already bound somewhere else on your bars. KeyboardPort will not allow you to remove the last instance of a spell from your bars. You can, however, replace abilities on your action bars with others, using the above instructions.
Warning: You must always, always reload after changing your action bars with KeyboardPort, or it could cause critical addon errors for you later.
#7i More on Stance Bars and Adding Items to Hot Bars
If you are a rogue or a druid, or if you want to place items on your hotbars as well as spells, you will use the same instructions above, however, you will want to enter your desired stance before attempting to add the stance-specific abilities. This is because at level 3 for rogues and level 5 for druids, you will gain an ability which replaces your main action bar with a hidden one called a stance bar. The stance bar will be empty to begin with, and you will need to fill it independently from your main action bar.
Do not place the Cheap Shot or Shred abilities on your main bar; they will only work in your stances. You may place the Stealth and Cat Form abilities if you wish, but by default stances are bound to control plus the function keys, starting at F1.
Rogues, by now you should be high enough level to have Stealth. Once you have placed everything but Cheap Shot on your bars, press control-F1 to activate this stance. You should hear a low swoosh sound. Now, place each ability from your spellbook in the same place you put them on your main bar, but this time find a place for Cheap Shot. This ability can only be used from stealth.
Druids, you may not be level 5 by the time you reach this quest. Place your abilities for now, and once you reach level 5 you will need to move the Shred ability to slot 1 of your first stance bar. Your other abilities may be placed on this bar as well, but these will shift you back to humanoid form if used. Cat Form should default to control-F1; later stances will be added to control-F2, control-F3, etc. You should hear a puff and a growl when you activate it. Note that some racial abilities may already be on this stance bar.
Warning: You must always, always reload after changing your action bars with KeyboardPort, or it will cause critical addon errors for you later.
If you want to add an item to your hotbar, this can be done in a similar fashion. Open your bag by typing B, then navigate to the item you wish to bind. Once you’ve found it, type comma to pick up the item, then /ui, locate the space on your hotbar that you wish the item to occupy, then hit comma again. /reload one more time and the item should be ready to use. You will learn more about how to effectively navigate your bags later in this guide.
#7j Spell Flyouts
Sometimes when you page through your spellbook you will hear the name of an ability followed by the words, click to toggle flyout. This means that several spells have been grouped together for ease of locating them in the spellbook. You will know you are trying to pick up a flyout if instead of giving you placement options you hear only the name of the flyout category.
To use these spells, first open the flyout with comma, then move right to page through them. If you are low level, this flyout may contain only one item. From here you can pick up the spells using one of the methods outlined above.
Now that you have put your abilities onto your hotbars, you are ready to begin the next quest. Path to the area using the quest book and target your commander, then interact or use a ranged combat ability to begin sparring. Hunters will instead need to use your Tame Beast ability as instructed by the expedition's tracker, but should read the following anyway.
#8a Quest: Enhanced Combat Tactics
Captain Garrick or Warlord Breka will ask you to use some basic class abilities during this quest. Take your time and try things out; this is not a timed exercise. She will give you a hint when an ability is ready, but to apply the things she teaches you to later quests, you may find the Hear Kitty optional addon useful. This can be found at:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/hear-kitty
#8b TTS Creaturesay
Your sparring partner's hints will be voice acted, but also posted to the /tts creaturesay channel. Keeping this channel turned on can be helpful for quests which aren't voice acted, but if it overlaps with the voice lines you can toggle it by pressing enter on the following:
/tts creaturesay
You may also want these other commands turned on while questing:
/tts creatureyell
/tts creaturewhisper
/tts creatureemote
To hear the full list of options available for the native TTS, type /tts help. However, many of these do not work as expected.
#8c Quest Stacking
Once you have demonstrated your mastery of your new class abilities, it's time to turn in this quest and catch up with your crew's tracker.
Up until now, you have been given one quest at a time. When you turn in the Northbound quest however, you will be given two of them, both of which can be completed at the same time. In fact, you will need to complete both of these campaign quests to advance the story.
Instead of an accept button when interacting with an NPC who has multiple quests, you will be presented with a list of quests to choose from. You might be given both campaign quests and side quests from the same NPC, and some quests will not unlock until you have accepted another quest first. Once you have accepted the second to last quest an NPC offers you, the quest frame will automatically open the last quest and present it to you. If you are not sure whether you have accepted all quests offered by an NPC, close the quest frame with escape and interact again.
In many cases when quests are stacked, you will be given a list of things to kill and a list of things to do. For these scenarios, it is usually fastest to select the things to do quest first in your quest book, as you will probably find many of the creatures you are supposed to kill barring your way. In this case, Geolord Grek'og is at the very end of the quilboar camp, so make sure you finish Forbidden Quilboar Necromancy before heading to the location for Down with the Quilboar.
#8d Aggressive Mobs
The word mob in World of Warcraft is short for mobile NPC, but in the case of aggressive mobs it is easy for the literal interpretation of the word to become true as well. Up until now, the targets you have fought have all been passive mobs, that is, they will not attack unless attacked first or damaged by one of your area effect abilities.
The quilboar ahead are very different. They have a set distance called an aggro range, which if you move into they will see you and attack. They will not be so polite as to let you finish combat with their friends either, so be cautious as you move into the briarpatch and try not to move too far after engaging something. Remember that you can look ahead with tab to hear how far away any nearby attackable targets are.
Also in this area you will find a hidden objective, the Ogre Overseer. To path to him you can use the discovery key in your waylist, but be aware that he is somewhat tougher than the quilboar around him. He also has a knockback ability which will make you sound like you are falling, but he drops slightly better loot if you can take him.
#8e What to Do If You Die
It happens to us all. One minute you're questing along just fine, the next you're being serenaded by a ghostly choir. It's best to learn what to do before you dive into your first proper battle.
When you die, you will hear a death scream and the sound of a dialog menu popup. You should hear instructions telling you to type slash popup one to release spirit. Here is the slash command if you need to copy it:
/popup1
Alternately, you can use KeyboardPort to click the Release button. Once your spirit is released from your corpse, it should teleport to the nearest graveyard where a spirit healer waits to assist you.
Note that if you are in a party with a healer and the healer survives the fight, they may try to resurrect you instead, so you may not want to click release right away. Instead wait until you hear a harmonious chord, and then click accept. You will be resurrected at the healer's position, not that of your corpse.
The most important thing to do after releasing is not to move until you've collected the closest point. In areas with sparse mapping this may not be the case, but here in Exile's Reach if you move before collecting the nearest point you may accidentally grab the wrong path.
There are two ways you can return to life at the graveyard. The fastest is to speak to the spirit healer, however beyond level 10 this will have penalties. The ideal method is to open your waylist, type G for ghost, and path back to your corpse.
When pathing back is not possible, or if you would rather take the temporary resurrection penalties, collect the closest point and type the following:
/tar Spirit
In some zones or with certain toys applied, the name of the spirit healer may be different, so you can also type shift-G to use interactspin.
If you choose to path to your corpse with G in the waylist first make sure you collect the closest point with c beforehand. Once nearby the corpse a resurrect popup will appear. You may want to scan for nearby enemies with tab before you click accept.
In certain zones, your ghost may be mounted on a flying creature. If this is the case, you can press shift-G in the waylist to get a direct path to your corpse. These mounts will fly up to cross over obstacles when you press spacebar, and fly down when you press X.
If you begin pathing to your corpse and get lost, you can return to the graveyard by pressing control-alt-G twice in the waylist. Note that some applications, such as Google Drive, may use this command as a shortcut. If this is the case, you might have to OCR the Return to Graveyard button instead. Once again, be sure to collect the closest point when you arrive.
#8f How to Heal Yourself
As you fought the wildlife near the abandoned camp, you may have heard your healthpulse get faster and faster. If it is still beating quickly after the combat ends, you may want to heal yourself before you start another one. Before you head into a quest zone, it might be a good idea to prepare a quick way to do so.
Many classes have self-healing abilities already. If this is the case, note which button your healing spells are on before heading into combat. If you do not, you will want to use a food item from your bags.
You may have noticed that when you turned in the Cooking Meat quest, you received some Tough Jerky as a reward. To use this, make sure you are not in combat and then type /use Tough Jerky. When you eat, you will sit down on the ground, and you should stand up with X or spacebar or simply move forward before you attempt to use ttspin.
There is also a small chance that the chest you discovered earlier contained a Minor Healing Potion. To use these, note that you must type in the full name of the item, unlike with targeting mobs and NPCs. If you do not know what an item you want to use is called, see the following sections.
#8g Exploring Your Bags
By default, the open bags command is set to B. When you open your bags with BlindSlash on, you will find yourself in the search bar. For now, press enter to show everything so you can explore. You must press enter or escape once before you can close the bags with B. A couple useful commands that can be used in this search bar for the bags are: pressing the space bar once, then enter hides all of the empty bag slots; typing quest, then pressing enter will locate quest items; typing stamina, and then pressing enter will locate gear items; and typing recover, then pressing enter will locate food items.
There are two ways your bags might be laid out. If you have individual bags set, each bag will be four slots wide and a number of slots tall depending on its size. When all the bags are open they may also overflow into a second column to the left of the first.
If you have your bags set to combined instead, your bag layout will be ten slots wide and probably two or three slots tall by now. Currently, BlindSlash is coded best to help you navigate when the bags are combined. If you are unable to navigate through your bags properly or read any of the information about the item you’re looking for (which will be discussed shortly), it is possible that your bags are not combined. Locate the button for combine bags and make sure it’s enabled, then close your bags and try again.
Later you will be able to find or purchase larger bags. You may see something which says "Increase backpack size"; this is a locked slot you can ignore for now or unlock by adding certain security features to your BattleNet account, such as a phone number.
Another important thing to listen for when you open your bags is your durability percentage. This is the average remaining durability for your equipment, and a low number indicates that you need to repair something. Since there are no repair vendors in Exile's Reach, this will be discussed more in a later section.
#8h Using Items From Your Bags
After opening your bags with B, either type what you want to find in the search bar, or simply press enter with it empty to page around. To filter for something to use to heal yourself, for example, you could search for jerky, or potion, or any other kind of food or healing item you have purchased. To include both of these types of item in a search, you could type in a word they would each have in their tooltip, such as Heal.
Once you find the item you want to use, press period to emulate a right click. You can also equip armor you find here with a right click; we will discuss armor in more detail later. Use comma, or left click, to pick up an item so you can move it to a different slot, and left click again to drop it. Dropping it in an occupied slot will move the second item to the slot the first one used to be.
Remember that if you are moving items using KeyboardPort, it is safest to reload once you are done.
#8i Placing Items Onto Your Action Bars
Be aware that bag navigation with KeyboardPort will not be available in combat, so it will be more efficient to place combat-use items like potions on your action bars. To do this, follow the instructions outlined earlier in this guide to bind the item to your bar, then reload.
Note that while it is possible to pick up an item in your bags with space bar just like you would from your spellbook, KeyboardPort has a different set of options here. Since you will have to use the unlimited UI anyway, it is safer to simply pick items in your bags up with comma.
#8j Comparing Equipment
While paging around your inventory, you may have seen some armor items you picked up while questing. Some of these might be better quality than what you are wearing, others might be worse. There are a couple ways to check.
The quickest way to compare items is to type /compare when hovering over the item. this will read out your currenty item equipped and what yould change if you equip the new one you hover over.
Another way is to press the left control button to read the tooltip, then press period to equip it. You may get a popup which says, "Equipping this item will bind it to you." Clicking Okay will cause the item to become soulbound, which means it cannot be traded to another player. This is not something you need to be worried about at this point in the game, so go ahead and bind it. Once bound, its appearance will also be saved to your collections tab.
Once you have swapped the items, press left control again to read the tooltip. The most important number in the tooltip will be the object's item level; the higher the better. Later in the game you may want to research which secondary stats are best for your class and build, but this is not necessary here.
To compare items without binding them to you, you will need to have the character pane open in addition to your bags frame. The default binding for this is C. The character pane will open to the left of your bags, and has armor listed in two columns to either side, with weapons listed on the row at the bottom. Move to the slot you wish to inspect and press left control to read the tooltip for your equipped item.
#8k Armor and Weapon Types
While most quest rewards will be items you can equip, there will be many weapons and armor pieces in the game which are the wrong type for your character. Review the section for your class in the following guide to find out which weapons you can equip:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/choosing-your-class-a-beginners-guide-5179
The weapon type from this list which is best for your character will generally depend on which specialty you choose at level ten, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this guide.
For armor, your character class will determine which type you can wear, according to the following list:
Cloth armor - Priest, Mage, Warlock.
Leather armor - Rogue, Druid, Monk, Demon Hunter.
Mail armor - Hunter, Shaman, Evoker.
Plate armor - Warrior, Paladin, Death Knight.
Once you're geared up and have your healing sorted out, head into the briarpatch and give those quilboar a try. So long as you avoid getting mobbed, you should be all right. On your way out, don't forget to check your discovery list to see if it picked up the treasure nearby.
When you reach Geolord Grek'og, it is possible that you may not see him immediately. This is because the game allows some time for players who have killed him to get out of range before he respawns. Unlike in Classic, you may share credit for killing most mobs with other players, so wait patiently and don't be afraid to help someone who is already fighting.
Once you've turned in both quests, it's time to learn something new.
#9a Vehicle Type 1 - Just Along For the Ride
The engineer you rescued from the quilboar now has a task for you - to fly over the field full of ravening undead who stand between your commander and her missing family member. Press shift-Q to target the vehicle they deploy, or you can type /tar Choppy for Horde or /tar Scout if you're Alliance.
A simple interact should let you board this dubious-looking flight device. If not, you can toggle your soft interact with the U key to make sure your interact will focus on your target and not the NPCs in your way. Be sure to turn soft interact back on after you've boarded.
There is nothing special for you to do while this mission plays out, so sit back and enjoy the banter. When you land, you should always collect the closest point in case you were dropped off in a different place than you started. You should also be in the habit of collecting the closest point after a cut scene. You will know you are in a cut scene if you cannot move your character. There may also be a musical cue.
#9b Special Use Items
Turn in the quest and pick up the next one. You will now be asked to use the Re-Sizer v9.0.1 on the Wandering Boars nearby. You may remember the first aid kit quest where you were asked to use an item on your wounded crewmates; the mechanics here are similar, but there are some important differences.
Many special use items have a fairly long range. The Re-sizer does not. When you use interact on the boars from too far away, the game will instead auto-attack them for you. While you could simply spam the interact key and hope the boar doesn't die before the Re-Sizer finishes doing its thing, it's better to use the extra action button. This should have been bound to shift-E in section 3b.
If for some reason the extra action button can't find your quest item, there are a couple things to try. The first is to see whether the item has been placed in your bags where you can right click to use it or even bind it to your action bars. Some items may also be a piece of equipment which you need to swap with your current gear; don't forget to swap back after you're done with the quest.
The final thing to try is to identify the name of the quest item and use it with a slash command like this one:
/use Re-Sizer v9.0.1
Unlike with /target, you must use the complete and properly-spelled name of the item or ability. If you cannot get these from the quest text, look up the quest on WowHead and find it there.
For these boars, all you need do is get fairly close with tab and spintarget, then use the Re-Sizer. Other items may need to be used from a distance, or while standing in a certain spot. Finish fiddling around with the re-sizer and turn in the quest. You should also be careful not to aggro any of the deer nearby, as they tend to run in packs.
#9c Vehicle Type 2 - Self-Driving
If you are playing a Horde character, the quest you will do next involves a self-driving vehicle. This will carry you along a set path while you use special action buttons to affect things below you. Note that you will need a mouse or touch pad to complete many self-driving vehicle quests. In many cases the recorded objectives will be useless, as the game considers the vehicle a separate entity from your character.
Before you hop aboard the Choppy Booster, make sure your mouse is plugged in and place where it will not get bumped around. You may wish to set it on top of something light colored, such as a sheet of blank paper, to reduce its ability to track movement.
Now type the following to place your cursor in the center of the screen.
/center
This is not to be confused with the /camcenter command, which centers your camera vertically. /camcenter may be helpful when getting sighted assistance, but is not needed for this specific quest. Instead, use your spinobj command, which should be bound to H.
Spinobj will spin you in a circle, looking for something you can interact with. If it does not find anything, it will change your camera angle until you are facing straight up or straight down, whichever is opposite from how you started. This transition takes about two seconds, so you shouldn't need to press it more often than this.
Before long, your spinobj should lock onto something. At this point, you know you are facing quest objectives, so start spamming 1 to ready the Re-Sizer and alternate with left click to fire it at the ground. The comma key will not work in place of a mouse click here.
It takes about 40 seconds for the Choppy Booster to carry you around the entire circuit. Many vehicles, particularly in older expansions, will drop you on the ground where you started whether you finished or not, but the Choppy Booster will continue looping until you have found all your targets or ejected. Continue spamming 1 and left click, 1 left and click, until you have completed a circuit and no longer hear targets being destroyed.
After your first loop, the remaining targets will probably be those furthest away from the path. Continue pressing H until you hear the interact noise, then repeat 1 and left click for another full circuit. If done carefully, you should be able to complete all objectives within three circuits of the route. If you do need to eject, pressing your 6 key should return you to your starting point.
Once you complete the quest, be sure to collect the closest waypoint before continuing, as you will land at a new location.
#9d Vehicle Type 3 - Player Controlled
If you are playing an Alliance character, you will instead be driving a player-controlled vehicle. Find the re-sized boar with shift-Q or /tar giant, then interact to board it. Remember that you can toggle your soft interact with U if your interact selected the wrong target.
Once you are aboard, type the following to make sure your camera isn't pointed too far up or down:
/camcenter
This is not to be confused with the /center command, which moves your cursor to the center of the screen. /center might help you determine whether there is a target in front of you, but it is not infallible. Type it too, if desired.
Like the Re-Deather quest the Horde do, your vehicle will only have 1 button to worry about. Unlike a self-driving vehicle quest, your spin commands will be useless here. In fact, they may point you in the wrong direction and cause you to be dismounted for moving too far from the quest area, so be sure to turn manually to the beacons here. If you are dismounted, simply retarget your mount with either of the above methods and interact with it again. This may cause the sword-and-shield sound to trigger, which normally indicates the beginning of combat, but you will remount the giant boar. If you are uncertain if you’ve remounted, try pressing 1. If you are mounted, you will hear the boar charge, if not you will attempt to use the ability you have bound to that key, and likely turn to target the nearest attackable npc.
There are recorded objectives for this quest, however the path goes right through the first three of them, so it may be faster to set your path to objective 4 from the start. Instead of walking forward once you have turned toward each beacon, use your 1 key to charge and take out any enemies in front of you as you go.
You should be able to complete this quest with the points recorded in the quest book and manual turns. If you do not seem to be moving toward the beacons, your boar might be stuck on one of the torches beside the path. Try moving backward with S briefly then tap Q or E to strafe left or right before charging again. Remember that simply walking will not damage your targets; you must use charge to complete the quest.
Once you are done, you will be moved to a specific location before you are dismounted, so don't forget to collect the closest waypoint.
#9e How to Read Vehicle Button Tooltips
For many vehicle quests, you may be able to spam buttons without knowing what they do. When you need a little more info, you might check WowHead to see if anyone has left a helpful comment, but chances are you're going to have to do something a little more complicated.
Be aware that the following method will cause a KeyboardPort error, and that you will need to reload once you finish in order to make it go away. Don't panic if you see this error, just click ignore for now.
To begin, turn on the unlimited UI by typing /UI. Now you will need to open any navigation pane; C for character is a good one. With unlimited UI you should be able to move the virtual cursor to the very bottom of the screen. Go down until it stops, then press the left arrow to land inside the override action bar frame.
Continue moving left until you find yourself outside the override action frame, then move right again to be sure you are on the leftmost button. This will most likely be bound to your 1 key and additional abilities to 2, 3, etcetera, but you can check by pressing comma on each button. Be careful not to click the eject button, because not all vehicles will return you to the start location when you exit. From here you can also press left control to hear the tooltip for each ability.
Now the buggy part. Once you have used KeyboardPort while in a vehicle, you will get an addon error when pressing the keys bound to your vehicle abilities. You could leave your navigation pane open and press the buttons with comma, but it's probably better to memorize the keys and /reload. Don't forget to turn off /UI until you need it again.
#9e How to Exit a Vehicle
The default command for ejecting from a vehicle or two-seater mount is listed as numpad 5, however this rarely works. The following command will eject you from most vehicles:
/leavevehicle
Note that the command is a single word, with no spaces. You may also use the instructions in the vehicle tooltip section above to click the eject button for your specific vehicle, but don't forget to reload as this method is buggy. Most vehicles will drop you where you stand, but a few will return you to your original location when you eject.
To climb off a summoned mount, type /dismount instead.
Once you finish the vehicle part of your quest, be sure to collect the closest point before moving. The remainder of this quest involves NPCs who are behind fences or inside a building, so follow the quest objectives carefully to avoid getting stuck.
#10a Navigating Inside Buildings
When you fight Torgok, listen closely for the creaking door sound you hear when you approach. This means you have crossed the threshold of a building. Though Torgok's hut is a single room affair, the doorway is narrow and there is some light clutter inside, so be sure to collect the point inside the building before beginning a path elsewhere.
You should collect the point even if you finish killing Torgok before you reach it. If you do not, BlindSlash will begin a new path at your last known location, and you may get stuck on doorposts or lanterns placed beside the doors. Always collect the final point in your paths when moving around indoors.
While inside a building, you will not be able to use a mount or other outdoor-only abilities. Short-term speed boosts like a paladin's Divine Steed will still be effective, however these are mainly to be avoided unless inside a cave or dungeon. Most buildings are narrow and have lots of narrow doorways to get stuck on.
It is also probable that our hand-drawn paths will cross above and below each other when indoors, so this is one of the places where you should be cautious about collecting the closest point after moving. If you plan to log out inside a multi-level building, be sure you are standing directly over a waypoint so that you can collect the same one when you log back in.
#10b Quest Reward Choices
When you try to turn in this quest, you might instead hear a failure noise. This usually means you need to make a choice between quest rewards before you can turn it in. Page around through the listed options and pick whichever weapon sounds the most interesting. You will most likely replace it as soon as you leave Exile's Reach, so don't stress over your decision.
#10c Finding New Quests
After equipping your new weapon, you will no doubt discover that there is no one standing nearby to give you another quest. To find out where to go, open your waylist and type Q to find quests on the map. Page up and down until you find the quest called Stocking Up on Supplies. If you are high enough level you may also see another nearby quest called Killclaw the Terrible; ignore this for now and press enter on the other one.
You will note when paging through this list that each of the quests have a number listed after them. This is the distance between you and the place where the quest begins. You may find this helpful when deciding which to choose first. BlindSlash contains two methods for locating nearby questing options. The first, as mentioned, is Q. This key provides a list of nearby quests, as well as quests that are in bordering zones (more information on changing zones will be provided later in this guide). The second method is using the W key. This provides a more comprehensive list of quests that are specific to the area, as well as available worldquests. This second method is not usable in Exile’s Reach, but will become so once you’ve left the starting area.
#10d Accepting Quests in Crowded Areas
When you arrive at the location listed for this quest to begin, pressing G may not immediately grab the NPC you need to pick it up from. Remember that interact spin, which you should have bound to shift-G, will turn between friendly interactable targets here in Exile's Reach. You may also find it helpful to toggle soft interact with U, but remember to turn it back on once you have found your target. Lastly you can use the f key in the waylist and type nameplate in there. with up and down arrow select npcs and then target them outside of the waylist with backspace.
Note that questpoint discovery, which we bound to shift-Q in section 3b, may help you find who you need to turn a quest in to, but it is not helpful for picking them up. If all else fails, look up the quest you want to begin on WowHead and copy the questgiver's name so you can /target them. If interact still won't move you toward them, remember that you can pingtarget with T and hear whether they're to the left or right of you, then center them and move closer until you're within range to interact.
Another command which will work once you are out of Exile's Reach is control-tab. This will tab through nearby friendly targets, just as tab by itself will cycle through enemies.
#10e Interacting With Vendors
Accept the quest. You can use the objectives to path to your next goal, or simply press shift-G until you hear something like "vendor", "Provisioner", or "Quartermaster". When you interact with them, your bags will open and BlindSlash will automatically sell all junk items for you, completing part one of this quest. Remember that when your bags open, you will need to press enter with or without a search query before you can explore the vendor frame.
You may also sell any items in your inventory which you do not need by pressing period on them. Note that this is the same key you would use to equip an item, so make sure the vendor frame is closed before trying something on. If you sell something by mistake, see the Buyback section below.
In order to complete this quest, you will have to buy something as well. Move all the way to the left to find the first column of the vendor pane; there will be a second column just to the right of it. A vendor frame generally holds ten items per page, with change page buttons below the righthand column, just above the vendor buyback button. The page can also be changed by scrolling a mouse wheel.
This vendor sells only two items: a five-pack of tough jerky and an Alliance or Horde tabard. Each of these cost 25 copper pieces, which will be read to you as 0.0025 gold. You can see whether you have enough money by typing /gold.
Do not feel the need to stock up on food here, as you will quickly out-level it. If you purchase the tabard you will attain the Represent achievement regardless of whether you equip it. Choose one or both of these and press period to buy it, or pick up with comma to place it manually into your bags. If an item has a high cost or is purchased with a special currency, you may be asked to confirm your purchase.
At this time, purchasing quantities is inaccessible.
#10f Vendor Buyback aka Oops I Sold My Stuff
If you sold something by accident, don't panic. To recover the last thing you sold, page down to the merchant buyback button, which is to the right of the sell all junk button. To recover something else, move to the Buyback tab near the bottom left of the merchant frame and press comma. This tab will contain the last twelve items you sold since you logged in.
Press period on each item you want to buy back; the list will shuffle as items are removed. To buy or sell items again after using the buyback tab, go back to the bottom left corner of the vendor frame and click the Merchant tab.
If you logged out or sold twelve other items after the one you want to buy back, it will no longer show on this frame. However, high level gear and certain reward items can be recovered using Blizzard's item restoration service at the following website:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/restoration
#10g Branched Quests
When you turn in Stocking Up on Supplies and search for quests in the waylist with Q, you will now see three or four different options. You can do these quests in any order, and most of them will give you additional quests after you complete them. Because these are all still campaign quests, each of these quests and all of their branches must be completed before you can continue the main story.
The hardest part about branched quests is that you may receive multiple quests from nearby NPCs which were not visible before you turned in the last one. It is a good habit to check for nearby quests in the waylist whenever you pick up a quest, as sometimes being on a specific quest will make you eligible for other quests in the same location.
#10h Incorrect Quest Locations
For this tutorial, we will do the quest Westward Bound first. Do not use the waylist to find your way to this quest, as the location is listed wrong in the game's database. Instead, find Darkmaul Plains 5 using your arrows keys in the waylist, or simply direct target the questgiver. For Horde this will be Lana Jordan, spelled L A N A. For Alliance you want Bjorn Stouthands, B J O R N.
This happens very rarely in the game, but when the path leads you wrong you should check the comments section for the quest on WowHead. If you seem to be in the correct location but still cannot reach the NPC you need, first check the tricky-quest-solutions channel in our Discord, to see if anyone else has a suggestion. Feel free to post your own solutions there if you find one. If you still cannot solve it, post the zone, quest, and waypoint into the map-testing channel instead, so one of our Wayfinders can take a look.
The location you turn this quest in is also wrong, but it is not too far off. Target Lana or Bjorn again if you do not see them at first, or simply stop at the last waypoint before you hear "final destination."
#10i Navigating Narrow Spaces
The quest called Who Lurks in the Pit will take you down a winding spiral path with a drop-off on one side. It is important to move slowly here to avoid getting stuck on roots or falling into the center. One way to do this is to toggle walk mode.
The default key for toggle walk mode is numpad slash. If your device does not have this key, you may wish to bind it to something else. The following command sets it to the V key:
/run SetBinding("V", "TOGGLERUN")SaveBindings(1)
To set this to a different key, first consult the bindings readme in the BlindSlash addon folder.
It is generally good practice to walk when entering a building, or whenever the path contains keywords such as narrow or slow. In other places, it may be enough to simply dismount or cancel any speed boosts which have been applied to your character. You can check your current buffs with /buffs, and remove a buff with /cancelaura and the spell name.
If you do fall, consult the Advanced Waylist Skills section later in this guide.
#10j Interacting with Objects
With the exception of the treasure chests you may have opened along the way, we have mostly been dealing with targetable creatures such as friendly or hostile NPCs. Many quest objectives will not be creatures, but instead will be objects you must interact with along the path.
The thick cocoons trapping your expedition members are one such example. Listen carefully for the popping sound as you approach the quest objectives. If your interact key does not find the object immediately, it may have simply moved you up to the object the first time, so press G again just in case. If a second keypress does nothing, you may have walked past it. Try turning with your arrow keys, or use H for spinobj to check above and below you. If there are too many interactable objects near by, you can try using shift-G to interactspin and page between them.
As you move into the spider pit, you may want to ensure that /tts creaturesay is enabled, since not every NPC down here has voice lines. Also it is critical that if you die in this area that you collect the closest waypoint before moving after release, since the spirit healer stands directly above a different section of the path. If you have forgotten this step, see if you can direct path back to the spirit healer using the methods described in this section.
#11a What To Do If You Fall
The path into the pit is steep and you may hear a brief falling sound, like a cartoon character saying "Wah!" This does not by itself mean that you are off the path, but if you cannot reach the next waypoint, you may have landed somewhere the path didn't intend to take you. To avoid this, be sure to move carefully whenever the waypoint says something like narrow, or slow, or falling risk. To recover, try one of the methods below.
#11b Direct Pathing
If you fall during the first ten waypoints in this spiral, a web across the pit will catch you. Normally when you get off the path, you can collect the closest waypoint and recover, but inside a building or cave this might grab a point from a higher or lower level.
Instead, you can try direct pathing to an alternate waypoint with shift-enter. To do this, first open the waylist with L. You will notice that the waylist opens on your last known location, which can be helpful for finding your place quickly and deciding which point to try next. In this cave, you were going down as the numbers rose, so you could try the next point below it in the list, or even go down further if you can't reach that one.
In this case, we know that the landing point for the upper section is Spider Pit 11. Find it in the waylist and press shift-enter to start pathing. This should take you directly toward the waypoint, rather than trying to pick up the path where you left off.
You should generally use direct pathing when flying, assuming the area you're going to is outdoors. You can also direct path to quests on the map or quest objectives using the waylist. For each of these, simply press shift-enter instead of the enter key to start your path.
#11c Rescue Points
If you fall in the lower section of this pit, below about point 12, you will need to use the rescue point instead. There are two ways to find these. The old way is to open the waylist and hold control and alt while pressing the left or right arrows to page through the list. The point you want will hopefully share a name with the path you were on. Since the waylist bookmarks your last known position, this should be only a single keypress up or down in the rescue list.
In this case, you want Spider Pit 25 falling rescue. With this point selected, press shift-enter to direct path to it. When you get there, everyone but undead should probably press spacebar for a moment, to make sure your head is above the water.
Alternately, use the waylist lookup method below to search for the rescue key, which is the less than symbol.
#11d Waylist Lookup
To activate waylist lookup, open the waylist and then press L. This will open a search dialogue which filters the waylist for only points containing what you type in. You can now page up and down through the filtered results, or hit backspace to try a different search term. Do not press enter after typing your query, as this will close the lookup dialog and return you to the regular waylist. Once you have found the point you need with the arrow keys, press enter or escape once to close the lookup dialog, then press enter on your selected waypoint to path normally, or shift-enter to direct path there instead.
Waylist lookup may be the ideal way to search for rescue points, as it will also tell you how far away each search entry is. To lookup rescue points, type the less than key into search and arrow up and down through the results. Make sure not to type the greater than symbol, as this will search for zone changes instead.
#11e How to Consume Waypoints, aka Help I'm Stuck In a Building
In most multi-level areas, you will not have convenient instructions telling you how to get back on the path. If collecting the closest point after a fall or login gives you a point which you cannot reach even with the obstacle strategies suggested in chapter 4, open the waylist again and press X. This will consume the closest waypoint to your location, removing it temporarily from the map, and suggest the next closest point instead. Press X until you find something which seems reasonable, then press N to begin pathing to it.
Note that opening the waylist again will redraw the map, restoring all consumed waypoints. You can also manually reset all waypoints with R in the waylist if you remove too many.
#11f How to Import Temporary Waypoints From the Web
In BlindSlash, our quests are recorded by volunteers who have played through the game and submitted their personal solutions. As there are tens of thousands of quests in World of Warcraft, you will inevitably come upon some which have not yet been recorded. For these you can explore the paths near the quest location and try to discover them yourself, or you may decide to search WowHead or another website for clues.
In most cases, these clues will be given as TomTom waypoints, in a format such as /way 42.60, 17.35, possibly with a zone number and label afterward. BlindSlash can use the information from these waypoints, but only if you extract it properly.
To path to a temporary waypoint, open the waylist and press Y. You may hear some outdated instructions; ignore these. All you actually need are the two waypoint numbers, which will both be four digits with a decimal point in the middle of them. If you are only given two digits, such as 42, 17, you will need to add the remaining digits manually, turning them into 42.00 and 17.00. Custom waypoints should not include the comma which TomTom uses to parse X and Y; place only a single space between these numbers.
Press enter to begin pathing. The waylist will take you to the closest waypoint to the coordinates you input, and then directly toward the temporary waypoint. Be aware that BlindSlash may not have paths which go directly where you need to go, and in some cases you may need a flying mount to reach them.
#11g What to Do If the Path Won't Start
If the waylist closes after you choose a point but the pathing doesn't start, the first thing to do is make sure you collected the closest point after a zone change or a reload. If you have ruled them out, it's possible that you're trying to reach a point on a disconnected path. You may need to perform an extra step to reach this, such as using a portal or approaching on a flying mount. If you believe the path should be connected, post a note in the map-testing-general channel in the BlindSlash Discord, and be sure to mention the zone name and the points you were trying to path between. A qust name might also be helpful.
Now that you are armed with the ability to recover should you fall, complete the quest Who Lurks in the Pit? by freeing people from cocoons and slaying the enemy holding the expedition's druid captive. The druid will now change into mount form and offer you a quick ride out of the pit. Interact with her to accept it, and make certain you collect the closest waypoint as soon as you hear the quest complete noise. If you forget, you can direct path to Spider Pit 3 with shift-enter in the waylist to get back on track.
#12a Breadcrumb Quests
Next you will need to accept and complete the breadcrumb quest called The Harpy Problem. A breadcrumb quest has no objectives, but is designed to take you from one quest hub to another.
The pickup location for The Harpy Problem is incorrect, so open the waylist and path to East Road 1 instead to find the questgiver. The turn-in location is correct.
When you arrive, turn in this breadcrumb quest and check for quests on the map with Q in the waylist. In large quest hubs you may find upwards of a dozen nearby quests, some of which might take you to the same location but more likely will lead you to other, smaller hubs. Here you will pick up three quests: Harpy Culling, Purge the Totems, and the mission to rescue the expedition's mage. Here in Exile’s Reach, all three quests should accept as soon as you collect any one of them, but this will not be the case once you reach the main game. Always ensure you have collected all available campaign quests before you move on, or you will have to retrace your steps.
#12b Quest Priority and Missing Objectives
With stacked quests like these ones, you will generally be given two or more different types of quest. In the quilboar briarpatch we were given a kill things quest and a boss quest. This time we have one of each of those plus an interact with objects quest.
In most cases, you will want to choose the objectives for either the interact with things quest, which here is Purge the Totems, or the boss quest, which is the mage rescue. While completing both of these quests you will fight and kill harpies, but if you choose Harpy Culling as your focus quest you may pass the other objectives and have to fight your way back through to them later. This guide assumes you chose Purge the Totems first.
Note that objectives for killing harpies and even purging totems may not mark as complete in the quest book if you were not standing on the exact spot they were recorded on. Some objective quests will have extra objects scattered around, and many of these will respawn after a minute or two. In the case of the harpy totems, all five need to be found to complete the quest. If you get stuck, go back through the list and listen for either a burning sound, which means you have found this one already, or an interact noise, which means you haven't.
You may discover an ogre taskmaster while doing these quests. As in the briarpatch, he is slightly tougher but drops better loot. Be aware that other players may kill him between when you hear the discovery notice and when you arrive. In this case, simply wait for him to respawn and then target him by name when the notice repeats.
There is also a chest of stolen supplies here, which may not be seen by your discovery key with the taskmaster prowling about. Explore using your waylist and see if you can find the chest!
#12c Triggered Event Quests
Once you have finished with the totems, head to the rescue quest. The expedition's mage should have some dialogue for you, but what you find when you get there will depend upon whether there are other players already working on the same quest.
If no one else is there when you arrive, you might be the lucky player who gets to start this fight. After accepting such quests, you will generally need to interact or speak with the NPC again to let them know you are ready. Do so if you can, or if there is no option for this then someone else may have triggered it recently. In this case, wait until the fight starts or try again once the event has finished resetting.
Quests like this can also come in waves, giving you a chance to defeat the first handful of enemies before the rest appear. The quest NPC will often join you in these fights. In this case, your mage has their hands full already, but your friends have been waiting in the wings to help you, and will jump in after a wave or two.
This quest also contains a relatively standard feature for a triggered event, which is a mini boss fight. You can get credit for this quest even if you missed the waves, so long as you damage this boss before it dies. If you hear someone fighting the boss but do not damage it in time to get credit, simply interact with the questgiver, possibly after a short wait while things respawn.
Rare quests throughout the game will have a fail condition, such as a certain NPC dying. In many of these, you can simply return to the spot where you triggered the event and begin again. In older zones, you may need to abandon the quest and reacquire it first.
#12d Hidden Quest: Freeing the Light
While uncommon, there exist quests which for whatever reason will not show up on your quests on map list. If you get stuck without quests to do, you may need to search on WowHead to find them. Be sure to use the zone you're in as a keyword, and possibly the last quest you completed. Often, major story chains will have links to the previous and next steps in their wiki entry.
There is one such hidden quest in Exile's Reach. After you finish the last three quests and turn them in, pick up the Message to Base quest but do not turn it in yet. Instead, open your waylist and press L to access waypoint lookup. Now type in the word ruins and arrow down to find the waypoint labeled Strange Ruins 7. Path to it by pressing enter once to close the lookup dialog and a second time to begin pathing.
#12e Hard Target vs Soft Target
When you arrive at your destination, you will find a creature called a Lightspawn trapped by necrotic energies. He wants you to free him by interacting with the ritual pedestals placed around the courtyard.
When you path to the objectives and press interact, you may instead find yourself walking back to the Lightspawn. This is because when you interacted to pick up the quest, he became your hard target. There are ways you can interact with your hard target that you can't with a soft target, such as /level to see the creature's level, /class to see its character class, and alt-T to open a context menu.
You can even hard target yourself. Press F1 to do so, then alt-T, then page up and down through the menu. Most of what you see here are sub-menus which open by moving right on them. Close this menu by hitting escape.
A soft target, on the other hand, is something your soft interact has seen but which you have not yet interacted with. Interacting with an NPC you have soft targeted will make them your hard target instead.
When quest objectives are too close to an NPC you have hard targeted, your soft interact may not behave as expected. To fix this, press escape to clear your hard target, or type /cleartarget with no spaces to do so without closing any menus you have open.
Once you have completed this quest, turn it in to gain a speed buff and then return to base.
#12f Click On Ground aka Reticle Spells
One important thing you should learn before you leave Exile's Reach is how to cast spells which require you to click on the ground. Hunters will need to learn how to do this in order to complete their upcoming class quest, and other classes may gain this sort of spell in the levels to come. All classes will encounter quest items which use these in the game.
In general, reticle spells are area effect spells designed to be dropped at a distance from the caster. A circle will appear on the ground to indicate the extent of the spell, and a left mouse click will finish the cast.
Unfortunately, this click cannot be emulated by KeyboardPort, and judging the target location is near-impossible. Nor is there a way to drop a reticle spell at a target's feet, since this ability could be abused by bots.
There is however a way to drop it at your own feet. First you will need to know the spell's exact name, which you may have to look up on WowHead. We will name ourselves as the target by typing left square bracket, @ symbol, player, right square bracket. For example, to drop a hunter's freezing trap at your feet, you would use the following:
/cast [@player] Freezing Trap
This has the added advantage of only taking one buttonpress to cast.
There may be times at which you need to drop a reticle spell at a specific location, such as a warlock quest requiring the use of Demonic Gateway, or a vehicle quest in which you must break a barrier in front of you to continue. If you can somehow face in the right direction, here is one method which might work.
First, type /camcenter to make sure you're facing straight ahead, then /center to move your game cursor to the center of the screen. This should place it just beyond your character, at a distance determined by your zoom level. If this is not the location you need, you might need to nudge the mouse up or to one side before casting your spell. If it still doesn't work, consult the tricky-quest-solutions channel in the Discord or seek sighted help.
#12g Advanced Class Lessons
Turn in your previous quest and equip any new pieces of gear you've collected. Next, open the waylist and page through the quests on the map using Q and the up and down arrows, until you find the quest with the name of your class in it. Accept this quest and read the instructions carefully.
This next step in your journey will vary depending on which class you have chosen. Try to complete this quest with the things you have learned, and remember that you can press alt-B and shift-B in the waylist to read the text and objectives from your most recently selected quest. Explanations for each one will be included in a later section in case you get stuck, but here are some important hints.
Paladins will be asked to use a spell with a short duration and a long cooldown; start your pathing before you cast and then move quickly.
Priests, soft target will not see your objectives, so you will have to /target them. Their names are all First Expedition Recruit.
Rogues should pick up the Killclaw the Terrible quest on the way to their first objective and review the next two sections before proceeding, just in case they get a chance to kill him.
Warriors, should you fall from the bridge, direct path to Darkmaul Plains 11 to return to the path.
#12h Multi-Player Objectives and Objects as Questgivers
Now that you have learned more about your class abilities, you might want to try something a little tougher. In your quests on the map list, you should have seen an optional side quest called Killclaw the Terrible. This quest is best completed with the help of another player, or better yet two. Even if you're not interested in the big bear or his treasure, reading this section will help you later.
The first difference between this quest and the ones you have done so far is that there is no NPC who grants this quest. To accept it, you will need to interact with the Danger Sign you find along the path. Note that this cannot be located with /target. Should you complete this quest, you will turn it in at the treasure chest, which is a similar object.
Now to find some help. It's possible that when you approach Killclaw you will hear someone else in combat with him. The easiest way to join them is to jump in and attack Killclaw as soon as he is in range. You need not worry about anyone stealing credit for another person's kill, even if you are not in a group. Unless there are five other players already fighting him, you should get credit so long as you damage him before he dies.
A somewhat less reliable way to complete this quest is to press control-tab to see how many friendly players are nearby. Outside Exile's Reach, control-tab will also locate nearby questgivers, but while questing here it will generally only find players. If you see another player nearby, they may be waiting for someone braver to come along and attack him first.
Be aware that there are even more difficult enemies in the game, which may take more than five players to defeat. These are called world bosses, and are similar in strength to what you might find in a raid or dungeon. There are no world bosses in Exile's Reach.
Special note for hunters: You may tame Killclaw, but you will not get quest credit for defeating him this way.
#12i Using Public and Private Chat Channels
The third way to find help for a difficult objective is to use the public channels. By default these are disabled, but fortunately there is a slash command to turn this on.
/tts channel general
Other channels you may wish to turn on include trade, localdefense, newcomerchat, and services. Note that trade and services can be overwhelming on large servers, and that the game will not tell you which channel a message has been posted to. If you wish you can install an optional addon called Chat Sound Customizer, which makes a unique sound for each chat channel that people are speaking on. You can find that here:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/chat-sound-customizer
To speak on a channel, use a slash command. The slash command for guild chat is /g, and for party chat is /p. If you are part of a raid instance group, your party chat would be /i. To reply to a whisper, type /r. You can also send a private message using /whisper or /tell followed by the player name dash server name and then your message. For players on your own server, their name is sufficient.
In most cases, the general chat channel for any zone is 1, so you could ask for help here by typing /1 Anyone for Killclaw? Oftentimes people will not respond in chat even if they are on their way to help, so use control-tab or listen for the sound of combat starting to determine whether anyone has arrived. Alternately, they might invite you to their party or ask you to invite them to one. You can invite players by copying their player name and server, then typing /invite player-name. A short drumroll will announce a party invite from someone else.
Skim this chapter to learn things about the other classes if you like. These hints are for the class-specific quests in Exile's Reach.
#13a A Druid's Form
Path to the quest location, then interact. Be patient as this long cast completes.
To use your new mount form, press control-F3. Your action bar for this mount is the same as your humanoid form. You should also have bear form by now, which is control-F2. Don't forget to fill in your action bar for this stance before using it on combat.
Use your quests on map key in the waylist to find your way back to the quest hub.
#13b A Hunter's Trap
Part one: Collect the three items scattered around the area. Review the section about clicking on the ground if needed.
Part two: Tame the pet, making sure not to attack it instead. You must also dismiss your old pet first. Consult the section on spell flyouts for help with your pet utility menu.
Part Three: Speak to the questgiver and click the dialogue option to complete the quest. You do not need to stable any pets at this time. You will have to press escape to close the window before you can interact to turn in the quest.
If you want to swap back to your first pet, dismiss the new one and type the following:
/cast Call Pet 1
You can also target your pet and press alt-T to open a context menu.
#13c A Mage's Knowledge
Part one: Grab the book from the lake. When you return it, your trainer will demonstrate your new spell.
Part two: Review the sections in chapter 7 if needed and place Polymorph on your action bar. Choose a target and cast the spell, then use any attack spell to free your target.
#13d A Monk's Focus
Part one: Interact to meditate, then wait for the ghost to finish speaking.
Part two: Put your new spell on your action bar. Review chapter 7 if necessary. Spar with your meditation partner and use the new ability.
#13e A Paladin's Service
Part one: Interact with the ghost and choose the dialogue options provided. Note that the rest of this text will not read without OCR or the optional QuestTTS addon. QuestTTS may need to be configured first.
Part two: Place your new spell on your action bars, reviewing chapter 7 if necessary. Turn on pathing before you cast your spell, then hurry across the barrier.
If you do not cross the barrier within 8 seconds after casting, speak to the ghost again to get Divine Shield's 5 minute cooldown reset. You will still have to wait out the 30 second Forbearance debuff.
#13f A Priest's End
Part one: The priest's ghost stands on a little hill that's easy to fall off of. Strafe left or right to go around the steep bit. Complete the quest and add the spell to your action bars using the steps outlined in chapter 7.
Part two: /Target the First Expedition Recruits because corpses will not be seen by soft target. The spell takes a long time to cast, so do not move. You may have to wait for the resurrected recruits to move out of range before you can target the dead ones.
Use your quests on map key in the waylist to find your way back to the quest hub.
#13g A Rogue's End
Part one: Activate stealth when entering Killclaw's lair to sneak past him. The default keybind for this stance is control-F1; you should hear a whoosh. Target Killclaw and wait for him to walk away before collecting the quest items, then activate stealth again after each one.
Part two: Your new poison is in a spell flyout; see sections 7g through 7j to place this on your bars. Alternately, type /use Instant Poison. This lasts for one hour.
Gutgruk will be resistant to damage until this poison is applied.
#13h A Shaman's Duty
Part one: Grab the blossoms from the edge of the lake. Since they are close together, they may not all show up as separate objectives. Return to the quest hub and burn them in the campfire, remembering to clear your hard target with escape if interact grabs the wrong thing.
Part two: Find the wolf graves and interact with each one. The ghosts of the first expedition will follow you, though they are not interactable. Turn the quest in, then place your new ability on your action bar and use it to turn into a ghostly wolf. This form can be used while in combat so long as you do not cast another spell, and has increased movement speed.
#13i A Warlock's Bargain
Part one: Click the warlock's corpse and move to the dialog option in the panel. This panel is not marked as quest text and will not read without OCR or the optional QuestTTS addon. QuestTTS may need to be configured first.
Part two: Pick up the grimoire and right click from your bags to use it, or type /use Old Grimoire.
Type /cast Summon Voidwalker to replace your imp with your new, more powerful minion. To place this on your action bar, review the section on spell flyouts in chapter 7.
Use your quests on map key in the waylist to find your way back to the quest hub.
#13j A Warrior's End
Part one: Turn in the quest and place the new ability on your action bars, reviewing chapter 7 if needed. This quest takes place on a bridge; direct path to Darkmaul Plains 11 with shift-enter should you happen to fall.
Accept the new quest and interact again, then choose the dialog option. The rest of this text will not be read without OCR or the optional QuestTTS addon. QuestTTS may need to be configured first. Wait ten seconds for Hjalmar to walk to the end of the bridge, after which he will be targetable. His name is spelled H J A L M A R.
Part two: You must wear Hjalmar down before you can use execute. He will tell you when the ability is available; use it quickly before you accidentally finish him off.
Note that if you wait too long to attack him or leave combat without using your new skill, he will reset and you will need to speak with him to begin again.
Once you have completed all three quest branches and turned them in, it's time to face the ogres. Equip your new gear, place all your spells on your bars, and accept the quest called To Darkmaul Citadel.
#14a Disguises
Meet your commander outside the citadel. Remember that you may need to toggle soft interact if G does not target her. Turn in your quest and accept Right Beneath Their Eyes. Now speak to your party's mage and choose their dialogue option to complete objective one. The rest of this text will not read without OCR or the optional QuestTTS addon, which may need to be configured before it will read properly.
You are now disguised as an ogre, dragging your friends along with chains. Disguises can work in one of two ways; either they apply automatically so long as you're within the quest area, or they have an extra action button used to reapply them. Most quests where you can be unmasked will have a use item for once you're out of combat. For this quest, your disguise will hold for as long as it needs to.
You might also find quests which seem like disguise quests but in which your abilities are replaced with someone else's. These should be treated more like a player-driven vehicle.
#14b Emotes and Optional Quest Objectives
Grab objective 3, since objective 2 will complete as you walk there. Ogres you pass will become friendly targets. One of them will give you the instruction to wave at Gor'groth in the cooking pit.
You will know you are close to Gor'groth when he starts talking to you. Press control-tab to page through friendly targetable creatures until you find him, or simply type /target G O R. Now you will need to use an emote.
You may be familiar with emotes from other text-based games such as MUDs. These are simple slash commands which usually have no game impact but are used for roleplay purposes. In this case the emote you need is:
/wave
This quest has an optional objective which appears after you wave at Gor'groth. See if you can figure out how to dance using an emote. If you need a hint, the full list of World of Warcraft emotes can be found here:
As you might guess looking at the list, emotes generally have slightly different results if you have a creature targeted than if you do not. Soft interact does tend to grab unintentional emote targets, so you may need to turn it off to get the desired effect.
#14c Wrapping Up Exile's Reach
Grab objective five and turn in the quest. Now you will put all of your skills to use in your final challenge.
Make sure you collect all three quests, to avoid having to go back through the citadel. These quests are called Catapult Destruction, Controlling Their Stones, and Like Ogres to the Slaughter. Each of these quests will be given by a different member of your expedition, and unlike the harpy quests you must accept all of them manually. Remember that when stacking quests, it is less efficient to focus the Kill Things quest, so choose Stones or Catapult first.
You should be able to complete all of these objectives with the things you have learned, but here are some hints:
Pathing to a discovery is the D key in the waylist.
Catapult Destruction: Listen for the burning sound to see whether you have completed each objective. Do not move too soon after interacting, or the cast will not complete.
Controlling Their Stones: If there is no named target at your destination, another player has killed them. Wait until they respawn, and hurry out of the hut before they come back again. Do not forget to loot.
The second phase has only one objective marked, since they are very close together. Make sure soft interact is toggled on, and remember your interactspin.
Like Ogres to the Slaughter: Once killed by players, these targets can take a relatively long time to respawn. Be patient.
#14d What to Expect in a Dungeon
Once you have turned in all three quests, speak to the first expedition's commander to accept your final challenge - a dungeon quest. Most dungeon quests are optional; this one is not. You will need to complete it to leave Exile's Reach and unlock the alternate starting zones for any additional characters you create.
The most important thing to know about dungeons is that TomTom coordinates are not available inside. Without TomTom, BlindSlash cannot tell you where to go. At this time, you will only be able to complete this dungeon with the help of another player.
Fortunately, since dungeons are group content, the game has provided a way for you to find other players who need to do this dungeon. This process will be discussed in the next sections.
Before you head in, you should know what to expect. First of all, a dungeon party is typically made up of one tank, which means a character who can take a lot of damage, plus one healer, and three damage dealers, which are also called DPS. This stands for Damage Per Second.
For the dungeon in Exile's Reach, an NPC tank and healer will be provided for you. You could enter this dungeon with a full party of five players if you wish, but the dungeon finder will cap out at three players.
In most of what we call group-finder dungeons, all roles will fill before you are allowed to enter. Darkmaul Citadel is a special case called a scenario, and if there are no other players available it will place you inside the dungeon alone. You will not be able to complete the scenario in this case. If you do not see any other players inside, you will want to type /leave and try again.
Most World of Warcraft players run dungeons as quickly as possible, so they can move on to other content. You may need to use party chat if you fall behind. This is accessed with /p, followed by a space and then your message. For example, you could type:
/p Hey, I'm blind and my addons don't work in a dungeon. Could I follow someone?
In most cases the other players will be fine with it. If they leave you behind anyway, don't be discouraged. You will still get credit for the boss fight if they decide to try to do it without you, though it will take longer than if they let you participate.
Alternately, you could go in this dungeon with a party already formed. Many of our Wayfinders in the BlindSlash Discord are willing to help new players through this step, or you might try asking in general chat using the steps outlined in chapter 12.
#14e How to Follow Party Members
When you get inside the dungeon, the first thing you should do is choose a party member to follow. Pressing F2 will target the first party member beside yourself. If they are not close enough to follow, try F3.
There are two keys you can use to follow, assuming you bound them in chapter 3. F is your basic follow command, and will follow close behind your current target. You can also type /follow.
The second key is shift-F, which is bound to a follow macro. This macro is designed to both follow and assist your target, as well as storing the name of your preferred follow target. If will also try to target a different party member if it cannot find the preferred target. Finally, it will attempt to mount if you are outdoors, not moving, and not in combat. Be aware that several parts of this macro do not work in combat.
You should hear a sproing sound when you begin following someone, and an avalanche when you stop. You can toggle these sounds with /followannouncer, no spaces.
To use the follow macro, first select a party member and press shift-F once to set them as your preferred target. Your ideal follow target is probably someone with a similar fighting style, i.e. follow a melee fighter if you are melee, or a ranged fighter if you are ranged. Press shift-F again when you hear the sounds of combat and your target will become the enemy your preferred follow target is fighting. You should help fight this enemy until you hear the out of combat sound, then press shift-F again immediately after looting to resume follow.
Note that if you die or fall behind in this dungeon you will still get credit for its completion, so long as you do not leave before the final boss is killed.
#14f How to Queue for a Dungeon
To open the dungeon finder, press I. There are other group finder options in the lefthand column and on tabs to the bottom, but you want the Dungeon Finder page in the Dungeons and Raids tab. This should open by default when you press I.
Before you can enter a dungeon, you must chose a role. To find these, move all the way up inside the dungeon finder frame and then press left arrow. Some classes may only be able to choose the damage role. Other classes may be able to heal, or tank, or both. For this dungeon, it is fine to select the damage role. After you choose a combat specialty in a later chapter, you may wish to select a different role.
Now move down and check the box to the left of either Exile's Reach or Darkmaul Citadel to select this dungeon. This check box will have a generic name, but you can move right to hear the name again. If you lose your place, find the top of the frame and move down once, then left twice.
After checking the box, your cursor may move down to the Find Group button. If it does not, move right and then down until you reach it. Press it, and you should hear a low xylophone note. You may close the group finder window if desired, or click the button again to leave the queue. You will hear a discordant violin sound when you leave the queue.
When a dungeon group is ready, you will hear an ominous trombone noise. Find the button in the popup dialog which says Enter, and press it.
#14g Dungeon: Darkmaul Citadel
The first thing you will fight in this scenario dungeon is a group of unnamed ogres, often called trash mobs. Once you kill all of these, a barrier will drop and you will climb the stairs while fighting through another group of them, and finally reach the first boss, Tunk.
Tunk will periodically slam the ground, causing what is called area effect damage, or AOE. If you have the optional addon GTFO installed, you may get an audio warning before this happens. You can move out of this by moving left or right, or walking through Tunk to stand behind him, but don't panic if you get hit once or twice.
Now you will climb a ramp filled with ogre necromancers and their undead minions. Fight your way through them and you will finally have caught up with Gor'groth, who is wrapping up his ritual.
Be aware that if someone engages Gor'groth before the rest of the party is in the room, a gate will close and shut them out. If this happens, wait patiently while the trigger-happy party member is forced to fight this boss alone. You will still get credit if they complete the task, and the gate should open again so you can grab your loot.
After Gor'groth hits 50% health, he will sacrifice himself to complete the ritual. Ravnyr complains at him for not doing things properly, but that won't stop her from attacking the party. She has a nasty AOE attack which is difficult to dodge in time, but if you hear her winding up you can hit F2 to target a party member and F to move to their location. Do not use shift-F here as this will simply target Ravnyr again.
If you fail to dodge too many times, chances are you will die and be sent back to the beginning of the dungeon. Sometimes you may take damage from Ravnyr even here, but you will still get quest credit so long as the rest of the party takes her down. You may also receive your loot in the mail if you can't find your way back to loot the corpse.
Once Ravnyr is down, you're done, and can leave the dungeon. Do this by interacting with your commander and clicking on her dialog option, or by simply typing /leave.
Once you leave the dungeon, be sure to collect the closest point before turning in the quest. Accept the quest An End to Beginnings and board the wyvern or gryphon when you hear your soft interact catch the vehicle cursor. Click yes on the popup and enjoy the flight, which will be followed by an introduction to your faction's capital city. You must complete most of this introduction before the rest of the game's features will open up for you.
Note that once you land in a city, you may wish to turn off soft interact while pathing, as there are hundreds of interactable NPCs wandering about. Do not forget to turn it back on once you reach your destination.
#15a Quest: Welcome to Orgrimmar
If you belong to the Horde, you will be dropped just inside the gates of Orgrimmar, the capital city of the orcs. Turn in An End to Beginnings and pick up Welcome to Orgrimmar, which will take you all of thirty yards to your new guide, Cork Fizzlepop. He will follow you around through this next series of quests to make sure you get your bearings.
#15b Quest: Welcome to Stormwind
If you belong to the Alliance, you will be dropped just inside the gates of Stormwind, the capital city of the humans. Turn in An End to Beginnings and pick up Welcome to Stormwind, which will take you all of thirty yards to your new guide, Lindie Springstock. He will follow you around through this next series of quests to make sure you get your bearings.
#15c Finding Your Way
Cork or Lindie will direct you to ask a guard for directions. Most of the guards will be named Orgrimmar Grunt or Stormwind City Guard; it doesn't matter which specific guard you interact with, as their menus are identical. Page up and down through this list to get an idea of what you can search for in a city, then select the option for the stable master. The map pointer this generates will not be accessible, but you can search for most of these locations in the waylist with L.
Once you have asked for directions, interact with your guide again and instruct him to head to the stables. He will drive you to the other end of the city, giving commentary along the way. Do not forget to collect the closest point when you arrive.
#15b Your First Mount
At your destination, stablemaster Rohaka Tuskmaul for Horde or Curly for Alliance will give you a choice between two rewards. One of these will teach you how to summon a flying mount appropriate to your faction, and the other will teach you how to summon a ground mount. Make your selection and turn in the quest, then open your bags and type mount to filter for this item. Press left control to hear the tooltip and learn more about your mount if you like, then right click with period to consume the item and add the mount to your collection.
To find the mount now that you have learned to summon it, open your collections frame by typing shift-P. You have several different collections tabs, located at the bottom of this frame. Move to the tab called Mounts and click it. You will see a lot of mounts you have not yet collected in this list; read the tooltip to tell them apart. The tooltip will also tell you whether a mount can be summoned by all of your characters or just this one. Most will be account wide.
Move up until you hear the name of the mount you just acquired. This menu has two columns to the left for mounts; the right-hand column contains only the name of the mount, and the left-hand column contains an icon you can pick up with spacebar and place on your action bars using KeyboardPort via /ui bar 1. Remember to wait five seconds after dropping items onto your bars before pressing enter, then be sure to reload.
Alternately, if you bound the followmacro to shift-F, you can press that even when you are not trying to follow someone and it will summon a random mount from your favorites. If you have not set any favorite mounts, it will use your entire list. This mount is also chosen based on your level and what zone you are in; if you are above level 30 in an area you have unlocked flight for, it should choose a flying mount from the list.
The menu to add a mount to your favorites list is accessible, but barely. Click on the right-hand entry for the mount you want to set as favorite, then move down once, then left once to access the context menu. Your new favorite mount will move to the top of your collection.
You can of course use the /mount command to summon your mount, but be aware that the name must be typed perfectly to work this way. To climb off your mount, type /dismount. Summoning a different mount than you are currently riding will also dismount you first; you can then interrupt the cast by moving or pressing escape if you wish to remain on foot. Pressing shift-F will never dismount you.
#15c Navigation in Cities
While it may be tempting to mount up and run through town on your new toy, riding in cities is a risky proposition. Roads and bridges can be narrow here, and the speed boost from riding is often enough to make you overshoot your mark. This will land you in the water in Stormwind or Boralus. Many mounts will increase your height enough that you can no longer pass through doors as well, so it's better to stay dismounted, or at the very least press numpad slash to toggle walking. You will have plenty of opportunity to ride later.
Remember that you may also need to turn off soft interact to reduce the noise while pathing in crowded areas. This should be bound to the U key.
#15d Combat Specializations
By the end of Exile's Reach, you should have reached level ten and unlocked a combat specialization choice for your class. We will now need to select it.
Accept the What's Your Specialty? quest from Cork or Lindie. You must now find the trainer for your class inside a multi-level building, so make sure not to collect the closest point while inside, or you may get stuck on the wrong level. You may need to /target this person by name once you arrive, since the building can be crowded. Remember that you can press control-B in the waylist to hear your quest objectives again. If you cannot hear the name of your trainer well enough to guess at the spelling, you may need to google the quest. Be sure to include your class and faction, as there are 20 different variations of this quest, each with the same name.
Once you have found your target, interact with them and choose the dialogue option. Unfortunately, the rest of this text may not read without OCR or the optional Quest TTS addon. To learn more about your class specializations aka specs, you can consult this guide instead:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/choosing-your-class-a-beginners-guide-5179
To access your talent and specializations frame, press N. Choose the Specialization tab in the bottom left if necessary. Specs are arranged in columns, with three options for most classes. To select a specialization, find its name and then go to the Activate button directly below it. Changing specs will take several seconds.
You can change freely from one spec to another so long as you are not in combat. When changing specializations, all of your action bars will change to match the state they were in when you last had that spec selected.
#15e Choosing Your Talents
From the specializations frame, go to the bottom left section to find the Talents tab. Unfortunately the rest of this menu is not accessible with KeyboardPort, as talent trees do not have a consistent number of columns and can also change from season to season. For now, move up from the Talents tab and find the ‘default loadout’ button. This build is not optimized for high level content, but is fairly balanced for leveling your character.
Each time you gain a new level, you will be given a point to spend on either your class tree or your specialty tree. Both of these are displayed on the Talents tab. You can reapply the default loadout at each level, but you will have to swap to a different build first. Since your character only has the one currently, we will have to create a second one first.
To create another build, you can either import one, or save your current talents as a build. Since importing has to be done each level, it will be faster to save a blank build to swap back and forth from. To do this, find the button that says class talent frame again. This time, page up to New Loadout and left click, then type a name such as Blank. You will have to OCR the Save button.
To import a build from IcyVeins or another website, choose Import and paste the code you copied into the frame, then OCR the words New Loadout Name and click to focus the name field. Type something in and press enter.
You should now be able to swap between these builds from the class talent frame button menu. In order to save your changes, find the search bar, then arrow to the right where you’ll see an ‘apply changes’ button. You will need to spend all available talent points before you are able to apply your changes, and it will tell you so if you have not when you try to find this button.
#15f Using Your Hearthstone
Once you're done with your talents, turn the quest in and accept the one called Home Is Where the Hearth Is. Path to the innkeeper and interact with her. Remember to turn soft interact back on if you turned it off while pathing.
Most innkeepers will have a shop to browse, but not all. Choose the option to make this inn your home and then click Accept.
In your bags you will now find an object called a Hearthstone. Using this item or typing /use Hearthstone will return you to the exact spot you were standing when you set it. Any innkeeper can set your hearthstone for you; they will also replace it if you destroy it by accident. Note that you must stand still while using your hearthstone; this cast takes about ten seconds.
By default, you can use your hearthstone once every thirty minutes. If you belong to a guild which has unlocked certain guild achievements, this may be reduced to fifteen minutes. You may also acquire other hearthstone items, some of which are cosmetic and change the hearthstone animation and sounds. Others, such as the Dalaran Hearthstone, lead only to a single place and cannot be re-bound. If you have the chance, you should acquire this hearthstone by doing the Legion expansion introduction, because there is a portal to both faction capitals in Dalaran.
Aside from being convenient for quick travel back to a quest hub, a hearthstone is useful for getting unstuck when you cannot reach a rescue point. Don't forget this important tool.
When you turn in your hearthstone quest, you should automatically receive your next quest, titled The Dragon Isles Await. You can path to this quest or type /use Lost Dragonscale to be transported there automatically, however we recommend reviewing the following chapter completely before you leave your capital city, as there are a few things you should learn about first.
#16a Repairing Your Equipment
Below level ten, your gear will not take durability damage. By now, however, you should be high enough level that you will start hearing your gear durability percentage drop when you open your bags. You will also take a hit to your equipment's durability if you resurrect at a spirit healer instead of finding your corpse. You should never let this number drop below about forty percent.
While not every map has repair vendors marked in the waylist, there are some other tricks to find them. Blacksmith trainers will generally be within arm's reach of a repair vendor, and most weapon vendors will fix your gear. If there is an innkeeper in a village, there should be one of these nearby as well.
To repair at a vendor, open their shop frame, press escape or enter once to unfocus the search bar, and type /repair. You should hear both and anvil sound and coins clinking if this is successful.
There are also a handful of ways to repair without finding a vendor. Check out this guide if you'd like to learn more about them:
You should also feel free to request that missing repair vendors or other NPCs be marked on the map. To make a request, post the zone and any waypoints you may have spotted them near into the mapping-requests channel in the BlindSlash Discord.
#16b Flightmasters
Your most important quick travel tool at low levels will be the network of flightmasters posted at most major quest hubs. Lookup flight in the waylist to find these. You should be checking often for nearby flightmasters as you explore. Do not leave Orgrimmar or Stormwind without locating the flightmaster, or you may be unable to return quickly to this important travel hub.
When you first speak with a given flightmaster, you will add their location to your flight map. Interact again to open this map, and arrow up and down to hear the list of locations you have unlocked. Sometimes locations you have not collected will show up on this list; if you select one of these by mistake you will need to close the flight map and open it again to restart.
To travel, you can either search for a location manually, or you can open your quest book with B and page through your quests. Once you have found the quest you want to get closer to, press enter to hear the name of the flight location closest to the quest area, then press enter again to take the flight. If this is where you are already standing, pressing enter will close the taxi dialog but not the flight map. Close it and open again if you decide to fly elsewhere.
Alternately, if you know the name of the location you wish to go, you could simply interact with the flight master and then use the /taketaxi command. For example:
/taketaxi Orgrimmar
/taketaxi Stormwind
These will need to be spelled correctly, but you do not need to type in the entire flight point name. You could simply type O R G for Orgrimmar or Storm for Stormwind, so long as there is not another flight path starting with that name.
To fly to low level areas, the cost may be a handful of copper coins or even nothing at all. Higher level zones may have flight prices listed in silver or even gold.
Sometimes you may be offered a free ride to a flight master you have not collected yet. Make sure to interact with them once upon landing to actually collect the point.
#16c The Bank
When your bags get full of things you don't want to sell, you can visit the bank and deposit some of them. Each character has their own bank, with a base number of slots and the ability to buy more bags slots later. There is also a separate reagent tab to store items used in crafting, such as mined ore and gathered herbs.
You may also have access to a guild bank. This is usually a separate vault located near the general bank. Consult your guild's individual policies on storing and taking items from this bank.
At level twenty you will be offered a series of quests to unlock your Warband bank, which will allow you to store items in a common bank space accessible to all your characters. Completing this quest also adds an ability to your general spells tab which allows you to access this bank remotely once every two hours for ten minutes. This bank tab is laid out the same way as a guild bank, with extra space purchasable to the right.
#16d Portals
Most but not all capital cities possess a portal room of some kind. These portals may not be marked individually on a map, so be sure soft interact is on when searching for the portal you need. Note that some portals must be unlocked by doing a series of introduction quests or reaching a certain level.
Be aware also that there is no portal to the Legion version of Dalaran in the Broken Isles, only to the Wrath of the Lich King version in Northrend. To travel quickly to Legion Dalaran, use the hearthstone given to you after the Legion introduction quests, which can then be found in the Toys tab of your Collections menu. You can also travel there via the portal to Aszuna, but you will have to fly the rest of the way.
#16e Mailboxes
To send items or gold to other players, or to receive items you couldn't loot from a boss, visit a mailbox. These can be found scattered throughout cities and placed in front of most inns. Note that these are not findable with /target.
To open your mail and place all items contained there into your bags, first interact. This will open your bags as well, so press enter or escape once to unfocus the search bar, then type /mail. This will also remove any mail which does not have a custom message attached from your inbox, and mark those which do as read. To read the letters which remain, right click on each and move left to find the contents. You may need to OCR this pane. To delete a letter, move to the bottom of the message frame after opening it and click the delete button. Letters with attachments cannot be deleted.
To mail something to another player, find the Send Mail tab at the bottom, and be sure you type their name and server correctly. You may get a confirmation popup when you hit send if they are not in your guild or friends' list. You may not mail more than twelve items at a time. A small postage fee will be applied, usually a handful of silver or copper.
#16f Trading Items Between Players
To trade with a nearby player, target them and type /trade. You could also open the context menu with alt-T after targeting, then arrow up or down to find the trade option.
The trade interface has only six item slots for each player trading; to send more you will need to trade a second time. At the bottom is a single slot for items not to be traded, such as thing you want another player to enchant or unlock. At the top is gold, silver, and copper. Your items to be traded will appear on the left-hand column, and the other player's to the right. You can read tooltips with left control.
Once all items to be traded have been placed, both players must press the trade button to agree to the transaction. Note that gold trades cannot be accepted with an addon, and you will have to use OCR to trade gold. Any change to the contents of either side will clear the agreement, and you will have to press Trade again. Soulbound and Warband items cannot be traded.
Sometimes people will offer newbies free stuff. You'll know if someone is trying to give you something if you hear a random bag opening sound. Be wary of giving your belongings to players you do not trust, as there is no way to make them give it back.
#16g The Auction House
To buy or sell things to other players without having to find them in person, you can visit the auction house. See the auction house readme for more information.
#16h Profession Trainers
While not the most intuitive of game features, crafting and gathering professions can both be quite useful. Note that KeyboardPort has difficulty with the branched node crafting interface from Dragonflight and onward, but older expansion systems are a simple list.
The game currently has eight crafting professions, three gathering professions, and three minor professions. You can only have two major professions at a time.
You may learn all three of the minor professions, which are fishing, cooking, and archaeology. Archaeology is probably not accessible, and is also a tedious and neglected system. Fishing and cooking are generally only useful for high level content or making money on the auction house, but there is no reason not to learn them if you can afford it. Sometimes, possessing these skills will unlock additional related quests.
The gathering professions are skinning, herbalism, and mining. Skinning is probably the most accessible of these three, but all of them produce things which can be sold on the auction house.
Most crafting professions are designed to be paired with a gathering profession, though this is not required. Leatherworking goes well with skinning. Inscription and alchemy go well with herbalism. Blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, and engineering go well with mining. Tailoring and enchanting pair well together because neither requires a separate gathering profession. Consult the following guide for more detailed information:
https://www.wowhead.com/guides/professions
#16i Changing Zones
When you want to leave the city some way other than via portal or a flight path, you will need to do a zone change. BlindSlash can only see waypoints in your current zone, so if you hear an instruction to change zones when attempting to travel to a quest location, here is how to do it.
First of all, you may need to research your path a little. Some zones may be on a different continent, and require a portal or boat ride first. Others may be on the other side of adjacent zones. To check which zones connect to your current zone, open the waylist and press the left and right arrows.
To cross a zone boundary, path to it and then keep walking in a straight line. Sometimes zones change across a tight corner, so follow any alternate instructions in the waypoint itself. Once you're across, you should hear a subtle woodwind and marimba riff. After this you will want to collect the closest point before continuing.
If you cannot open the waylist after a zone change, it means you have reached a zone which has not been mapped. Carefully back up or hearthstone home and put in a map request in the BlindSlash Discord channel.
Note that if you are on a flying mount, you can direct path to the zonechange points with shift-enter.
#16j The Barbershop
While not currently blind accessible, the barbershop allows you to change your character's appearance with the help of a sighted player. To open the barbershop pane, interact with one of the chairs or mirrors inside.
#16k Transmogrifers
Like the barbershop, you may need sighted help for this, but it is somewhat more accessible. Visit the transmogrifer to change the appearance of your gear to that of any other appearance you have collected for that item type. You may save appearance sets and quickly apply them after acquiring new gear.
#16l The Trading Post
Partially accessible using OCR, the Trading Post is a cosmetic item shop with a monthly rotating stock. You receive Traders' Tender by participating in game activities, and can collect it from a chest beside the Trading Post. If you fill your activities bar, collecting your tender will also grant you this month's unique reward, which could be a mount, battle pet, toy, or transmog set.
To purchase from the Trading post, you will need to OCR the first confirmation button and then get sighted help for the second button. Traders’ Tender carries over month to month, so do not worry that you are losing anything by not spending it.
Now that you've had a look around, let's get back to questing. By default, the game will try to send you to the expansion previous to the most current one as your level-up expansion. For example, the default level-up zone during The War Within expansion is Dragonflight. Most of the recent expansions have enough nods to accessibility that you should feel comfortable following this chain of quests until you are high enough level to move on to the most current content. However, if you wish to level up in a different area, or are leveling your second character, you will want to become familiar with Chromie Time.
#17a Chromie Time
To enable Chromie Time and allow you to find the starting quests for older content, you will need to talk to a time-traveling dragon named Chromie. Open the waylist lookup while in Orgrimmar or Stormwind and type C H R O M I E into the box. Use down arrow to select her location, and remember to press enter twice to begin pathing.
Please note that you should not exit the tutorial until you have acquired a hearthstone, or you may get inextricably stuck and need sighted help to continue playing.
#17b How to Turn On Chromie Time
Find Chromie and interact. She may encourage you to continue the tutorial, but don't let her discourage you. Tell her you would like to try Timewalking, and that yes, you're sure. You will then need to accept a popup confirming that you understand what you are doing. After this, accept the quest which appears on your screen and speak to Chromie again to complete it. You can turn in the quest now, or wait until you have selected a timeline.
To choose a timeline, interact with Chromie and click the dialog option which should now be available. This will open the timewalking selection frame, which is a 3 by 3 grid with a Select button at the bottom. Note that expansions are not presented in any logical order.
Currently, the only expansions which are mapped are the Battle for Azeroth, the Legion Invasion, Cataclysm, and Dragonflight. We currently recommend you start play in either Cataclysm or the Legion invasion; more information on each of these is provided in the following sections. If you choose the Dragonflight expansion, please note that you will likely need sighted help for the first quest you encounter.
Once you have turned on Chromie Time, all content in non-current expansions will scale to your level up to 60, at which point Chromie Time will end. You may switch freely between expansions; speaking with Chromie will give you instructions on how to start an expansion, but will not restrict you from finding the starting quests elsewhere in your capital. If you find yourself in a zone which hasn't been mapped, you may have picked up one of these by mistake. Abandon the quest and use your hearthstone to return home.
#17c Should I Turn Off Chromie Time?
In general, there is no reason to turn off Chromie Time, as it will end automatically if you enter your capital city after reaching the starting level for the current expansion—level 70 for The War Within, 80 for Midnight, etcetera. At this point, you will gain almost no experience from older expansions, but most content will still feel moderately challenging. If you have not returned to your capital by the time you reach the next level after that, you will be teleported there forcibly and be given the quests for the most recent expansion.
Should you turn off Chromie Time early or return to these older zones after leveling past it, you will find that the content no longer scales to your level, but rather caps somewhere between level 30 and level 70. You can still do this content, but you will not gain much experience from it and the monsters will not be very challenging. You will still gain the equipment rewards from it, so feel free to continue this content if you are a collector, or if you're just in it for the story.
Speak to Chromie in your capital city should you decide to turn off Chromie time early. You can also swap expansions by speaking to her; this does not turn it off for your previous expansion, but will grant you the starting quest if you have not yet completed it.
#17d How to Drop a Quest
If you switch expansions or go wandering around another expansion’s zone while Chromie Time is turned on, you will probably end up with quests in your log book which you no longer need. It is also easy to pick up the starting quests for different expansions than you have chosen with Chromie Time by accident, since several of these begin in Orgrimmar or Stormwind. These include In the Blink of an Eye, Shadowlands: A Chilling Summons, and Battle for Azeroth: Mission Statement or Tides of War, depending on your faction. You may want to remove these from your quest book to avoid confusion later.
To remove the most recently accessed quest from your quest book, type /abandon. You can make certain you have the right quest selected by first opening your quest book, navigating to the quest you want to drop, and closing the waylist.
You may or may not receive a confirmation dialog or any other indication that the quest has been dropped. Note that in most cases, dropping a quest will reset your progress should you begin again. There are a handful of quests which cannot be dropped once accepted, or which will auto-accept every time you return to your capital city, so try not to select an expansion in Chromie Time unless you intend to complete its starting quests.
#17e How to Skip an Expansion’s Intro Quests
If you have played an expansion once on a character and wish to fast forward through the introduction scenarios on a different one, there is usually a way to do it. Consult the following list to see if your desired intro id listed:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/how-to-skip-expansion-introductions-17302
#17f Expansion Preview: Dragonflight
Dragonflight is the expansion directly previous to The War Within, and the one you will be directed to by default until the Midnight expansion is released. Be aware that since it has only recently been adjusted for Chromie Time, the WowHead entries on the starting quests may be incorrect. Update BlindSlash or consult a wayfinder in our Discord server if the addon does not lead you to the new location. Horde players will need to review the section on Changing Zones to reach the airship by foot, however there should be a portal beside the questgiver which provides a quick lift to the quest area instead. Be sure to collect the closest point after using this.
After completing these quests you will need to board a ship to the Dragon Isles. Carefully read the instructions in the waypoints and wait for the horn before embarking or disembarking. Make sure you collect the closest point after landing on the beach, and do not move between signals or you may be forced to hearthstone back and try again.
At a certain point in the first zone in the Dragon Isles, you will be asked to do a dragonriding tutorial quest. This utilizes the Skyriding system, which is not fully accessible, so you may need a sighted assistant to continue. However, once you obtain a Skyriding mount, you will be able to use it on any character starting at level 10. This is a very fast mount, and most blind players find it frustrating, but since it can be useful for getting unstuck during that level 10-20 window, I will explain the basics later in this tutorial.
Note that completing the Skyriding tutorial quests will probably switch your flight style from Steady Flight to Skyriding. If you wish to swap back, type the following:
/cast Switch Flight Style
Consult the sections on flying mounts for more information.
#17g Expansion Preview: Cataclysm
Cataclysm is the oldest of the currently mapped expansions. It has a less defined story order, which encourages exploration, and has the advantage of being on the same two continents you will find the Horde and Alliance capitals, meaning that most flight paths are connected. Since it is older content, some quests will be less clear in their instructions, but you can do some of them out of order, and even wander from zone to zone.
If at character creation you are provided a starting zone option besides Exile’s Reach, that zone will usually belong to the Cataclysm expansion. From this zone you will be able to explore the continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
At level 30, a different set of Cataclysm zones will unlock, most requiring flight to navigate, so be sure to collect the flying mount offered by a quest when you reach the appropriate level. These zones are mostly mapped, but since many quest paths require vertical movement you may want to select a different expansion at this point.
If you choose Cataclysm from Chromie's menu, she will send you to your faction's call board to look through the flyers posted there. Three flyers will be presented at a time; be aware that the right-hand flyer will always be for a different expansion. Chose the flyer in the left or the center, or grab more than one if you like to make new options appear. You can /abandon these extra quests later if needed.
Note that if you interact with the call board while a different Chromie Time expansion is selected, you are less likely to find Cataclysm zone quests in this list. Consult WowHead to determine which zones belong to each expansion.
Once you have glanced at the board, you can turn in your find the call board quest to Chromie, who has now appeared beside you. Review the section on changing zones to learn how to reach your chosen quest area.
If the zone is far away, you might also be offered a ride from the city's flight master. This will save you a lot of time if you use it. Remember to collect the flight point by interacting after you land, as this will not happen automatically.
#17h Expansion Preview: Legion
Legion is a fairly recent expansion, and as such has a much more user-friendly approach to questing. This does not mean that more of its quests are accessible, just that it is easier to find which step you need to do next. Its quests are linear within each zone, but the zones may be done out of order and each one has plenty of side quests. Legion has been fully mapped up to content which will unlock at level 45, but you can easily reach the end of Chromie Time with what has been mapped.
The central conceit of the Legion expansion is the class order halls. Each character class will be given its own unique campaign, with half a dozen short quest chains unavailable to other classes, plus a legendary weapon quest for each specialization.
Many of these quests will involve a type of quest called a scenario, which may have several quests' worth of objectives piled into one. You will know you are in a scenario if you hear drums in between each major quest objective rather than the standard quest advance chime.
The disadvantage of scenarios is that you will be doing content alone, though it is possible to enter some of these in a party with other players. If the entire scenario is not completed before you leave the area, you will usually have to start over. Some scenarios are more forgiving of this than others.
The opening scenario for Legion is fairly straightforward. Prepare yourself along the way to the docks, then board ship and begin the scenario. You will find yourself on a boat far from any waypoints; don't move around until you land. Step off the boat, following the quest NPCs as best you can and collecting the nearest waypoint after each cut scene. This scenario will end quicker if you participate, but will run to its conclusion even if you don't.
You will then do a series of quests ending with the teleportation of Dalaran to the Broken Isles. Turn in this quest to receive a unique hearthstone item, which after using once can be accessed from your toys tab in collections. Do not throw this away, or you will find it difficult to return to Dalaran. Also be sure to pick up the flightmaster for when this hearthstone is on cooldown.
Each class besides evokers will eventually be approached by someone with a class order hall quest. Complete these if you can, but if you get stuck before you gain access to the order hall itself, you can use the portal to your faction's capital and then return to the Broken Isles via the portal to Azsuna, which will land you on the ground below the city. You may quest as normal from here.
Either right before or right after you complete your first legendary weapon scenario, you will find yourself in your class order hall. This has a feature called a scouting map, which can be used to gain bonus rewards such as experience boosts. A tab at the bottom of this will also present you with the starting quests for each major zone of the Broken Isles, and give you a breadcrumb quest for each which includes a free ride down to the zone. You may need to turn off soft interact to page between quests on this map.
The scouting map for evokers can be found tucked in a corner of the Violet Citadel in Dalaran after accepting the quest An Adventurer's Aid from Archmage Khadgar. All zones but Suramar are currently mapped.
#17i Expansion Preview: Battle for Azeroth
The Battle for Azeroth expansion contains some of the most compelling storytelling in World of Warcraft, and is divided into faction-specific quest lines. To get the full BFA experience, you will want to play it through once as a Horde character and once as Alliance.
However, this expansion can be difficult to navigate without static flying, due to the high number of boats and narrow docks on the Alliance side, and the important quest hubs which exist on zone boundaries on the Horde side. For a less frustrating experience, you may want to begin questing elsewhere and return to this content once you gain static flying at level 20.
If you are playing your first character, the starting quests for Battle for Azeroth may skip a relatively difficult scenario quest for each faction. If the game decides that you are an experienced player, you will instead begin with a scene involving an escape from a prison cell. The Horde version of this is more difficult without sighted help than the Alliance version, but once you have completed each scenario on a single character, you will once again be provided with a means to skip it should you send a second character through this expansion. To access this skip, speak with the questgiver again after accepting the quest The Stormwind Extraction if you are Horde, or The Nation of Kul Tiras if you are Alliance.
#17j Expansion Preview: The War Within
The scenario for this expansion begins out in Silithus, which is quite a ways from your capital city. Take note of the teleport item granted when you collect the quest. If you lose this item you should be able to drop the quest and reacquire it, or if you have steady flight you can take the portal to the Caverns of Time from your faction’s portal room and direct path to Silithus from there. Do not accept the ride from the helpful dragon in the Caverns of time, as this will send you in the opposite direction.
Once you complete the portion in Silithus, step through the portal to Dalaran. Note that this is the Legion version of Dalaran located in the Broken Isles, not the one in Northrend. Make sure you obtain the flight path first if you need to leave the city in the middle of this quest chain, as the only way to return is by flying from Azsuna or using the Dalaran hearthstone toy acquired by completing the Legion expansion intro.
Once you complete the intro scenario and the quests on the beach, you will be asked to fly to Dornogal using the slipstream. This can be done using a Skyriding mount with sighted help, or by climbing aboard the stromrook mount located near the questgiver. Do not move far after you land, or you may fall off the tower. Complete the next quest using the self-driving vehicle quest tips mentioned earlier in this guide, and be sure you have collected the flight path before you go exploring.
After you complete the first zone, you will be asked to fly down a deep pit in middle of Dornogal. This can be done on a Skyriding mount or with some heavy mitigation against falling damage. You will not be able to Static fly in Khaz Algar zones until you have completed the Pathfinder achievement, so be sure to collect any flight points you find in the zones below.
Now that you know the basics, you should be able to figure out most of the game. There are a few more topics which will be of use to you as you continue to explore.
#18a The Elevator Boss
While some of the elevators in World of Warcraft have safety features like railings and make noise when they arrive, others are silent platforms of death. Where possible, we have left instructions in the waypoints beside each elevator with how to navigate them, but some will require a leap of faith and a corpse run.
Fortunately, the game has many ways to mitigate falling damage, if you know where to find them. Some popular options are listed below, with the pros and cons of each. We recommend having two or more of these at your disposal whenever possible.
Potion of Slow Fall
Pros: Instant use, stacks to 200, usable
at low level.
Cons: Expensive, short duration, only one known
drop location.
Sea Mist Potion
Pros: Relatively inexpensive, craftable,
instant use.
Cons: Short duration, must be level 40 to use.
Goblin Glider Kit
Pros: Instant use, relatively
inexpensive.
Cons: Gives a forward movement boost and must be
actively steered, only stacks to 20.
Stylish Black Parasol and other parasol toys
Pros: Short cast
and cooldown, long duration, usable while falling, infinite
uses.
Cons: Unreliable in elevators, can be difficult to
acquire.
Various other slow fall toys, Night Fae Soulshape
Pros:
Infinite uses.
Cons: Only work in a specific zone, some have
cooldowns measured in hours, most are hard to acquire. Soulshape must
be activated right before you hit the ground.
Various other engineering gadgets
Pros: Build it yourself,
reliable in elevators.
Cons: Must be an engineer to craft and
use.
There are three playable races with some built in falling mitigation.
Goblin - Rocket Jump
Pros: Infinite uses, 90 second
cooldown.
Cons: Includes a forward boost, does not last long.
Pandaren - Bouncy Trait
Pros: Passive ability.
Cons:
Merely reduces fall damage, does not negate it.
Dracthyr - Glide
Pros: No cooldown, instant cast.
Cons:
Requires active steering.
Many classes have some hidden and not so hidden falling mitigation abilities. These fall into various categories.
Charge abilities - includes Warrior's Charge and Intercept,
Hunter's Harpoon, Rogue's Shadowstrike, Druid's Skull Bash, and Demon
Hunter's Fel Rush
Pros: Take no damage no matter how far you
fell.
Cons: Must have an enemy targeted, puts you in combat.
Dodge abilities - includes Hunter's Disengage, Mage's Blink, and
Demon Hunter's Vengeful Retreat
Pros: Can negate all falling
damage if timed right.
Cons: Hard to time right.
Grapple abilities - includes Warrior's Heroic Leap, Rogue's
Grappling Hook
Pros: Can negate all falling damage.
Cons:
Must click on the ground, has a very short range.
Damage immunities - includes Paladin's Blessing of Protection and
Divine Shield, Mage's Ice Block, Demon Hunter's Netherwalk
Pros:
Negates all damage.
Cons: Uses a combat cooldown.
Slow fall abilities - includes Priest's Levitate, Mage's Slow
Fall, Druid's Flap, and Demon Hunter's Glide
Pros: Instant cast,
no cooldown.
Cons: Some require active steering, others cannot
be steered. Flap can only be cast while in Moonkin form. May not be
available at low levels.
Rogue - Safe Fall
Pros: Passive damage mitigation, stacks
with Bouncy.
Cons: Only reduces damage, not available at low
levels.
Rogue - Shadowstep
Pros: Can negate all damage.
Cons:
Has a cooldown, must have a target within range.
Druid - Flight Form
Pros: Instant cast, usable while falling,
static flight.
Cons: Not available at low levels.
Resurrect abilities - includes Warlock's Soul Stone and Shaman's
Reincarnate
Pros: Avoids a corpse run if you die.
Cons:
Uses a combat cooldown, may take equipment durability damage.
#18b Additional Action Bars
By now your action bar must be getting pretty full, but fear not; there are several more action bars which can be turned on via the interface tab in the options menu. Be aware that these do not have buttons mapped to them by default. There is currently no consensus on what key to bind your additional action bars to. Shift-number might be a good one, but be aware that control-number keys and various F key functions are already bound.
Consult the BlindSlash Discord for advice if you wish. There is also a brief readme on keybinds in the BlindSlash addon folder.
#18c Escort Quests
While most escort quests in retail World of Warcraft aren't as brutal as their counterparts in Classic, they can still be difficult, and they are definitely inconsistent. Some NPCs will continue walking no matter what you do; in newer content they may stop moving and complain at you, or even reset to their original location if you get too far away.
Use pingtarget to determine whether you are behind or ahead of your target, and it generally helps to be mounted when following them. Some escort quest NPCs will also be interactable, which can help if you get off track.
If you get stuck, try looking up the quest on WowHead and check the comments section for tips. There may also be a note in the tricky-quest-solutions channel in the BlindSlash Discord.
#18d Flying Vehicles and Steady Flight
There are two different kinds of mounted flight in World of Warcraft: Steady Flight, and Skyriding. Steady Flight, which has been around since the first expansion, allows you to hover in place indefinitely. You can climb with spacebar and descend with X. You maintain a constant speed while moving, depending upon your character level and sometimes what zone you're in. You may wish to /camcenter if you want to maintain a specific altitude, as you will move in the direction your camera is pointed. You may also want to toggle auto-run for long flights. Remember to shift-enter when selecting your destination to path to it directly.
Note that certain quest vehicles emulate static flight imperfectly. Sometimes when attempting to descend in these vehicles, you will get stuck. In order to unstick it, you will need to have click to move toggled on and use a mouse to right click on the ground somewhere. This click should immediately restore your ability to descend as normal. Reloading may also unstick you.
Your flight speed will depend mostly upon your character level, with a slow version of flight unlocking automatically at level 20 and faster flying unlocking at level 30. In some zones you may have to unlock Steady Flight first, or you may not be able to fly at all. Most dungeons are considered no-fly zones. Also note that in retail World of Warcraft, you no longer have to pay to learn flight or any other riding skills.
If you are in a zone where you believe you should be able to steady fly but your mount roars instead of taking off, or flaps upward and immediately lands, you might have Skyriding enabled. To revert to Steady flight, either find the Switch Flight Style button in the Skyriding dropdown menu near the top of your mounts pane, or type:
/cast Switch Flight Style
This affects both your flying mounts and a druid or dracthyr character’s flight ability.
#18e Basic Skyriding
Skyriding, introduced in the Dragonflight expansion, uses a system of momentum and endurance, and can move at as much as double the speed of Steady Flight. While it is possible to Skyride without sight, this will be much more challenging. Here are the basics, if you want to give it a try.
First of all, while Skyriding unlocks at level 10, you will need a mount capable of this type of flight in order to use it. The majority of flying mount types have now been made Skyriding-capable, so acquiring one should not be difficult. As of The War Within, completing the Exile’s Reach questline up through the intro to Orgrimmar or Stormwind should grant you a choice between a flying mount and a ground mount. There should also be flying mount vendors in your capital city, and you may acquire others from quests or killing certain monsters.
If you have a mount which appears to be Skyriding capable but it currently only hovers, you can switch back from Steady flight by typing /cast Switch Flight Style. This is a long cast, so don’t move until it finishes. Note that flying mounts which do not support Skyriding will be treated as ground mounts until you switch back.
When you climb aboard a Skyriding mount with the Skyriding flight style enabled, your main action bar will be replaced with a Skyriding bar, which you can customize in a similar way to the rogue’s stealth bar or a druid’s stance bars, as described in a previous chapter. You will then be given several new abilities, two of which I will explain in this guide and the rest you can investigate from the Skyriding flyout in the general tab of your spellbook.
Ideally, the ability called Surge Forward will already be placed on button 1 of your Skyriding bar, and Skyward Surge will be on button 2. Consult the section on Stance Bars if this is not the case, or simply take note of their locations and adjust these instructions as needed.
To lift into the air, activate Skyward Surge with button 2. You can also press spacebar quickly twice to achieve the same effect. Once you are airborne, press button one to Surge Forward, increasing your speed for a short while. This may be enough to overcome some obstacles, but if you wish to use Skyriding to cross great distances, you will need to learn how to use the fly up and fly down commands added by BlindSlash.
#18f Skyriding with FlyUp and FlyDown
Before beginning your flight, first select the point you wish to reach and press shift-enter to select it, then turn toward the point. Next input the following command:
/flyup 10
This will point your camera skyward for ten seconds and then point it back down slightly, at an angle which will allow you to glide forward without losing speed and falling out of the air. Make sure you are turned to the right direction before you fly up, because spin commands will not work properly while Skyriding. During the ten seconds of flyup, you must press 2 or the spacebar key continuously to climb as high as possible.
Once the flyup phase has ended, pressing 2 will not be as effective because your camera angle will be lower. Now however you can press 1 to Surge Forward and move rapidly across the map. You may hear a chime indicating that your Vigor bar is replenishing as you glide; this resource is used to to fly up and surge forward, and has a maximum of six charges. If you run out of vigor, you must wait for it to recharge before you can fly again.
After you have completed the flyup phase, you will want to use the flydown command fairly quickly. This also must have a number listed in seconds, which is the amount of time that flydown will spend looking for your chosen waypoint before turning off. If you reach the target waypoint before the time elapses, you will hear the words “target acquired”, and your camera will point downward and try to drop you directly on that point. Feel free to choose a large number if needed, such as:
/flydown 300
Be aware that BlindSlash cannot detect when you have landed, and will continue to point you downward so long as you remain on that spot. If you have chosen a long flydown time, make sure to step off the point before launching again. Also note that if you type /flydown without a number, it will drop you to the ground immediately.
#18g Ride Along
One new feature introduced with dynamic flying which you will be able to take advantage of is Ride Along. A sighted player who owns certain Skyriding mounts can turn on this option by opening the Skills and Unlocks panel from the Skyriding dropdown on their mounts pane. This will then allow one other player to treat that party member as a vehicle. The rider will be turned into a dragon whelp and will fly along with them, and may even be able to complete certain quest objectives with your escort.
Note that only the original Skyriding mounts currently allow Ride Along. These include most mounts obtain by questing in the Dragon Isles, and some mounts acquired by pre-ordering The War Within or Dragonflight expansions. Other than these, only the Sandstone Drake allows a passenger, though because this mount turns the summoner into a dragon, it does not required Ride Along to be enabled.
#18h Swimming
To move while swimming, use the same commands you would in static flight, that is, spacebar to ascend and X to descend. If this does not work, make sure you have not bound the X key to something else. You may want to /camcenter if trying to remain at a static depth.
Most characters will need to ascend periodically to catch their breath; the exceptions are undead characters and druids in travel form, assuming the druid is high enough level to have their swimming travel form. Other characters may be granted water breathing and even fast swimming by a quest item, spell, or a crafted item such as this one:
https://www.wowhead.com/item=5996/elixir-of-water-breathing
There also exist swimming mounts, which will increase your swim speed greatly. These may not work in underwater caves, which are considered indoors. The most versatile mounts currently are the ottuks, which you can acquire from the Iskaara Tuskarr in the Dragon Isles, and the Woundrous Wavewhisker, which you can purchase from the Blizzard shop. The Wavewhisker mount may also be included in a 12-month WoW subscription, depending on when the subscription was purchased. Both ottuk mounts and the Wavewhisker can travel on land or in water, and the Wavewhisper can fly at higher levels.
If you don't need to go under the water, a more readily available option are the Inflatable Mount Shoes item created by players and available on the Auction House. These will allow any mount to walk on top of the water, though be aware that if you dive while riding one the water walking spell may vanish until that mount is summoned again. Mount equipment must be applied per character in the Mounts tab of the Collections frame.
Note that if you die underwater, your ghost will walk on the surface and may not be able to get close enough for the respawn popup to appear. Should this happen, you may need to rez at the graveyard.
#18i Macros
Sometimes, you want one button to do more than one thing. A macro is a game command which allows you to specify different spells depending on what your target is, whether you are in combat, etcetera. Consult the following guide for some tips:
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/macro-guide-6061
To place a macro on your bars, open the /macro interface and create it, then type the following, making sure to place your macro between the quotation marks:
/run PickupMacro("macroname")
Now you should be able to drop the macro as you would any other spell using KeyboardPort. Do not forget to reload after changing your action bars with KeyboardPort.
#18j Is There a BlindSlash Guild?
There are generally several guilds around at any given time which welcome blind players, but we do not have a dedicated BlindSlash guild. We do have a community channel to connect people on North American servers, which you can join with the following command:
/run CommunitiesFrame:Show()CommunitiesAddDialog:SetAttribute("setshown", true)
With this open, paste in the invite code GMN4DP7cdGy and press enter. You will be automatically added to the community chat, which you can access via a tab in the guild frame.
#18k How Can I Support BlindSlash?
BlindSlash is currently sponsored by users like you, and by InviOcean, whose mission is to make the world more accessible and friendly to everyone, regardless of their visual abilities. You can explore their various resources on the website:
To directly support noyz, the developer of BlindSlash, you can visit his Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/BlindSlash
To thank Lironah, the author of this guide, visit her Ko-Fi page:
Current revisions to this guide courtesy of Brandon Schiafone (aka mafia.mouse). Thank you, Brandon, and all of our lovely test users on the BlindSlash Discord.
We also have several mappers in the BlindSlash Discord who would appreciate if someone pitched in to their World of Warcraft subscriptions, and we would love you to send your sighted friends our way to help fill in the maps! If you want to contribute directly to the effort, you can join us there and report map bugs, contribute quest solutions, and record quests which have not yet been submitted.
#18l How to Share Quest Recordings
If you find a quest which does not have objectives marked in the quest book, you can help improve the game for your fellow BlindSlash users by contributing solutions! To record a quest, follow these steps carefully:
Step 1: Ensure you are not in the middle of a quest with multiple objectives, say 5 out of 10 library books reshelved.
Step 2: Type /bsrecord and then /reload. This will turn recording on.
Step 3: Quest as normal, making sure that you do not leave any quests partially recorded.
Step 4: Make sure you are logged out of the character.
Step 5: Navigate to the file the recordings are stored in. This should be in World of Warcraft/retail/WTF/Account/Your account number/Server name/Character name/SavedVariables/BlindSlash.lua.
Step 6: Post that whole file into the questshare-channel in the Discord. Optionally you can remove the chat and whisper history bits from the beginning of the file if you are concerned about privacy; this will not affect the quest recordings.
To turn off quest recording, simply type /bsrecord and then /reload again.